ADDRESS 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS, 


HIS    CONSTITUENTS 


TWELFTH  COHGRESSSOZJAL  DISTRICT, 

AT  BRAINTREE, 

SEPTEMBER    17TH,    1842. 


Heportefc  originally  for  tfye  Beaton 


BOSTON: 

J.  H.  EASTBURN,  PRINTER. 
1842. 


RECEPTION 


OF  THE 


HON.  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS, 

BY   HIS   CONSTITUENTS. 


THE  reception  of  this  venerable  statesman  and  patriot,  by  his 
constituents  of  the  twelfth  Congressional  District,  took  place,  agree- 
ably to  public  notice,  on  Saturday  last,  near  Weymouth  landing,  in 
Braintree.  The  whole  proceedings  of  the  day  do  high  honor,  alike 
to  the  citizens  of  the  District,  in  showing  so  just  an  appreciation  of 
the  distinguished  services  of  their  faithful  and  honored  public  ser- 
vant, and  to  the  worthy  object  of  this  unusual  mark  of  esteem  and 
grateful  regard. 

The  procession  of  citizens  of  the  District  formed,  at  about  one 
o'clock,  in  the  Rev.  Mr.  Spear's  church,  in  Weymouth,  and  march- 
ed from  thence  to  the  meetinghouse  of  Rev.  Mr.  Perkins,  in  Brain- 
tree.  HON.  NATHANIEL  MORTON  DAVIS,  of  Plymouth,  presided  over 
the  meeting,  assisted  by  the  following  officers. 

Seth  Sprague,  of  Duxbury, 
Thomas  Greenleaf,  of  duincy, 


>  Vice  Presidents. 


Micah  Pool,  of  Abington, 
Minot  Thayer,  of  JBraintree, 
Anson  Robbins,  of  Scituate, 
Sylvanus  Bourn,  of  Wareham, 

Sidney  H.  Gay,  of  Hingham,        \ 

John  A.  Green,  of  duincy,  >  Secretaries. 

John  M.  Spear,  of  Weymouth,     j 

Over  and  around  the  pulpit  were  painted,  on  white  canvass,  the 
following  inscriptions  of  welcome  to  the  able  defender  of  the  rights 
of  petition  and  the  rights  of  man.  Over  the  pulpit;  "Let  there  be 
light."  On  the  right;  "  Welcome  defender  of  the  right  of  petition." 
On  the  left ;  "  Shame  en  the  nation  that  fosters  and  sustains  an  in- 
stitution, which  dares  assail  and  would  destroy  the  sacred  right  of 
petition." 

The  church  was  thronged  and  crowded  in  every  nook  and  corner, 


3 

with  a  dense  mass  of  the  intelligence  and  beauty  of  the  vicinity.  A 
large  number  were  present  from  the  neighboring  towns — some  from 
quite  a  distance,  all  anxious  to  do  honor  to  their  intrepid  and  inde- 
fatigable public  servant.  Upon  the  entrance  of  Mr.  Adams  into  the 
church,  the  whole  assembly,  ladies  included,  rose  to  welcome  him. 
After  a  prayer  had  been  addressed  to  the  Throne  of  Grace,  by  Rev. 
Mr.  Perkins,  of  Braintree,  the  President,  Mr.  Davis,  addressed  to 
Mr.  Adams  the  following  brief  but  excellent,  appropriate,  and  ex- 
pressive welcome,  which  was  cordially  and  warmly  approved  by  the 
assembly. 


MR.  DAVIS'S  SPEECH. 


We  are  assembled,  fellow  citizens,  from  all  quarters  of  our  Con- 

fressional  District,  from  the  banks  of  the  Neponset  to  the  Rock  of 
lymouth,  to  welcome  the  return  of  our  venerable  Representative,  at 
the  close  of  the  longest,  and  certainly  one  of  the  most  exciting  ses- 
sions of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States. 

Since  the  formation  of  this  District,  a  period  of  nearly  ten  years, 
he  has  represented  us  on  the  floor  of  Congress.    We  meet  to  day, 
therefore,  to  thank  him  not  merely  for  the  services  of  a  single  ses- 
sion, but  to  acknowledge  the  debt  of  gratitude  which  has  been  ac- 
cumulating during  the  whole  of  that  period.     I  believe  I  express  the 
universal  sentiment,  when  I  say  that  those  services  were  never  more 
highly  estimated  than  at  this  moment.     They  have  never  been  more 
signal  than  during  the  session  of  Congress  which  has  just  terminated. 
Conspicuous  as  have  been  the  efforts  of  your  Representative  upon 
these  great  questions,  the  Tariff.  Distribution,  the  Veto  Power,  yet, 
gentlemen,  our  country  and  posterity  will  reserve  their  highest  hon- 
ors for  his  commanding  eloquence  and  gigantic  labors  in  defence  of 
a  right,  without  which  all  other  rights  and  all  other  interests  are  of 
small  account,  the  Right  of  Petition.     For  the  maintenance  of  this 
right,  guaranteed  by  the  constitution  in  the  broadest  terms,  your  ven- 
erable Representative  has  been  branded  as  a  traitor,  and  his  expulsion 
threatened  from  the  post  where  you  had  placed  him.    I  need  not  tell  you 
of  the  signal  defeat  of  the  enemies  of  that  right,  in  their  desperate 
attempt  to  overpower  and  disarm  its  veteran  champion.     That  is  a 
triumph,  gentlemen,  of  which  Southern  chivalry  cannot  yet  boast. 
"  Though  aged,  he  was  so  iron  of  limb, 
Few  of  our  youth  could  cope  with  him, 
And  the  foes  whom  he  singly  kept  at  bay 
Outnumbered  his  thin  hairs  of  silver  grey.  ' 

The  compromise,  at  the  formation  of  the  constitution,  between 
freedom  and  slavery,  was  undoubtedly  founded  on  the  belief  that  the 


4 

latter  would  dwindle  and  die.  Let  that  compromise  be  maintained. 
The  interests  of  humanity,  involved  in  the  preservation  of  the  Union, 
are  too  momentous  to  be  hazarded  by  the  disruption  of  this  glorious 
confederacy.  But  while  we  rally,  with  unwavering  fidelity,  around 
the  banner  of  the  Union,  let  us  not  be  false  to  the  spirit  of  the  men 
who  formed  it. 

Let  us  not  suffer  that  Union  to  become  the  instrument  by  which 
slavery  is  to  be  perpetuated,  at  the  expense  of  the  rights  and  inter- 
ests of  the  North.  To  the  people  of  this  district  belongs  the  honor 
of  sustaining,  for  the  last  ten  years,  a  Representative  eminently 
faithful  in  their  defence.  At  each  and  every  attempt  of  Southern 
Representatives  and  their  Northern  allies,  to  sacrifice,  at  the  altar  of 
slavery,  the  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  the  right  of  petition, 
the  protection  of  free  labor,  and  the  immunities  and  privileges  of 
Northern  citizens,  he  has  never  failed  to  sound  the  alarm,  and  to 
gird  himself  for  the  battle.  Sagacious  to  foresee,  and  prompt  to  de- 
nounce the  project  for  perpetuating  slavery  by  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  to  him  in  a  great  measure  belongs  the  credit  of  warding  off, 
not  only  that  annexation,  but  the  war  with  Mexico,  by  which  it  was 
to  be  effected.  Ever  at  his  post,  by  day  and  by  night,  no  matter 
how  violent  the  assault,  against  any  odds  and  all  challengers,  this 
soldier  of  freedom  has  never  shrunk  from  the  encounter.  Amid  in- 
sults, abuse  and  obliquy,  the  fiercest  fury  of  Southern  invective,  in 
the  wildest  of  the  storm,  breasting  the  mad  lashings  of  the  waves,  he 
has  stood,  a  watch-tower  upon  a  benighted  coast,  to  illumine,  to 
cheer,  and  to  save. 

Permit  me  sir,  to  congratulate  you  on  your  safe  return.  This 
thronging  multitude  of  your  constituents  and  friends,  come  to  bid 
you  welcome,  and  to  express  their  gratitude  for  your  untiring  labors. 

Assembled  in  this  ancient  town  of  Braintree,  memorable  as  the 
birth  place  of  your  illustrious  father  and  yourself,  our  minds  natu- 
rally revert  to  the  important  parts  which  both  have  sustained,  in  pro- 
moting the  fame  and  honor  of  our  country.  It  has  been  your  for- 
tune, in  posts  of  the  highest  trust  and  honor,  to  have  lent  your  pow- 
erful aid  to  strengthen  and  perpetuate  the  institutions  of  which  he 
was  so  eminent  a  founder.  Of  yourself  it  may  truly  be  said,  that 
your  life  has  been  your  country's.  For  more  than  half  a  century 
you  have  been  devoted  to  the  public  service — in  youth  and  in  age — 
at  home  and  abroad — in  foreign  courts  and  in  the  national  councils 
— as  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  Union,  and  as  a  Representative  on  the 
floor  of  Congress.  We  look  back  with  wonder  and  gratitude  upon 
services  so  vast  and  various. 

I  should  do  injustice  to  my  own  feelings,  sir,  did  I  fail,  on  this 
occasion,  to  allude  to  your  administration  as  President  of  the  United 
States.  Who,  now,  doubts  its  ability,  its  purity,  and  its  wisdom  ? 
Under  its  mild  and  benignant  rule,  the  prosperity  of  the  people  was 
disturbed  by  no  experiments  upon  their  industry.  That  industry 
was  protected  and  fostered  with  a  careful  hand.  The  currency  of 
the  country,  disordered  by  no  sudden  and  ill  advised  tampering  of 
the  Executive,  supplied  the  wants  and  facilitated  the  business  of  the 


people.  The  will  of  the  Executive  was  not  then  interposed  to  defeat 
the  policy,  and  to  negative  the  laws,  of  the  people's  Representatives, 
nor  was  the  constitution  set  at  defiance  on  the  personal  responsibility 
of  the  Chief  Magistrate.  The  patronage  of  the  Government  was  not 
exerted  to  subserve  the  interests  or  to  secure  the  success  of  party. 
The  doctrine  that  offices  are  the  spoils  of  victors,  and  the  rewards, 
not  of  public  but  partizan  services,  is  of  more  modern  date.  In  fine, 
it  was  an  administration  whose  only  guides  were  the  constitution 
and  laws,  and  whose  only  end  was  the  public  welfare.  This,  sir,  is 
no  party  euolgy.  It  is  a  part  of  the  history  of  the  country — and  in 
the  future  pages  of  that  history,  may  many  administrations,  of  equal 
purity  and  patriotism,  mingle  their  mild  glories  with  your  own. 

Yet,  sir,  your  services  in  the  highest  office  of  the  nation,  have  not 
surpassed  in  magnitude  those  which  you  have  rendered  as  the  Re- 
presentative of  this  District.  Your  proudest  honors  are  your  last. 
Advancing  age  has  but  advanced  your  usefulness  and  fame.  The 
course  of  your  life  is  like  that  of  the  unclouded  sun — bright  in  its 
dawn — splendid  at  its  meridian — going  down  in  glory. 


MR.  ADAMS'S  ADDRESS. 


The  first  and  all  absorbing  sentiment  of  my  heart,  on  being  hon- 
ored by  you,  my  constituents  of  ten  years'  standing,  with  this  recep- 
tion, is  gratitude — gratitude  to  God,  by  whose  mercy  I  have  for  the 
space  of  twelve  years,  and  through  six  successive  Congresses,  been 
sustained  in  the  performance  of  the  arduous  duties  of  the  station  as- 
signed to  me,  by  your  kind  indulgence — gratitude  to  you,  for  the 
steady,  consolatory,  and  cheering  support  which  you  have  uniformly 
and  invariably  extended  to  me  through  good  report  and  evil  report, 
through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  public  affairs,  for  that  long  period  of 
time. 

Gratitude,  warm,  sincere,  intense,  when  it  takes  possession  of  the 
bosom,  fills  the  soul  to  overflowing,  and  scarce  leaves  room  for  any 
other  sentiment  or  thought.  It  swells  with  a  general  impulse,  for 
all  the  favors  which  gave  it  birth  and  being.  It  then  loves  to  dwell 
upon  details.  It  treasures  up  in  the  memory  every  particular  in- 
stance in  which  the  liberal  spirit  of  the  benefactor  has  been  exer- 
cised ;  it  lingers  over  the  remembrance  of  small  incidents,  perhaps 
scarcely  observed  when  they  occurred. 

As  between  the  Representative  and  the  Constituent,  what  strong- 
er testimonial  of  continued  confidence  and  kindness  can  be  given 
than  the  recommission  of  the  same  trust  to  the  same  hands.  My 
first  election,  as  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the 
United  States,  was  for  the  Plymouth  District,  under  the  census  of 
1820,  when  the  proportion  of  Massachusetts  in  that  House  was  13  of 
185.  During  that  Congress  a  new  apportionment  was  enacted  un- 
der the  census  of  1830.  The  number  of  Representatives  in  the 
House  from  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  was  reduced  from 
13  to  12,  while  the  whole  number  of  the  House  was  increased  from 
185  to  240,  and  soon  afterwards  by  the  addition  of  two  more  for  the 
States  of  Michigan  and  Arkansas.  Five  re-elections,  at  two  years 
distance  from  each  other,  under  this  apportionment,  have  constitu- 
ted me  your  Representative  during  the  whole  period  of  your  exist- 
ence as  a  District — and  now,  even  now,  at  the.  moment  I  am  speak- 
ing, your  existence  as  a  Congressional  District  has  been  closed  by 
the  repeal  of  the  law  by  which  it  was  instituted  :  so  that,  after  hav- 
ing served  as  your  Representative  during  the  whole  term  of  your  cor- 
porate life,  I  am  left  henceforth,  during  one  more  short  session  of 
Congress,  to  serve  as  the  Executor  of  your  last  will  and  testament. 

I  undertook  to  discharge  to  the  best  of  my  abilities  the  duties  of 
your  Representative;  at  your  spontaneous,  unsolicited,  unexpected 


call,  under  a  deep  sense  of  the  obligations  which  that  character 
would,  in  any  circumstances,  have  devolved  upon  me,  and  of  the  en- 
hancement of  those  obligations,  by  the  peculiar  circumstances  of 
kindness  and  favor  under  which  that  call  was  made,  when,  after  half 
a  century  of  almost  uninterrupted  service  of  this  confederated  nation, 
a  great  part  of  the  time  in  stations  of  the  very  highest  honor,  digni- 
ty, and  trust,  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the  Union  had  manifested 
their  willingness  to  dispense  with  my  further  services,  and  their  pre- 
ference of  my  competitor  for  the  office  of  their  Chief  Magistrate,  I 
could  not  be  insensible  to  the  consideration  that  whatever  return  for 
long  and  faithful  service  I  had  received  from  the  whole  nation,  your 
confidence  at  least  was  unabated,  either  in  the  integrity  of  my  inten- 
tions or  in  my  capacity  to  serve  you — nor  can  I  disguise  or  suppress 
the  avowal,  that  this  affecting  testimonial  of  your  esteem,  acquired  a 
fourfold  pungency  in  stimulating  me  to  the  fulfilment  of  all  my  du- 
ties, under  the  new  relations  contracted  between  us,  by  the  conside- 
ration that  your  call  came  from  the  pure,  unadulterated  lineage  of 
the  Plymouth  Rock. 

It  has  been  my  endeavor  to  discharge  all  the  duties  of  the  station, 
in  which  your  favor  has  placed  and  continues  me — faithfully  and 
gratefully  to  you — faithfully  to  our  native  and  beloved  Common- 
wealth— faithfully  to  our  whole  common  Country,  the  North  Ameri- 
can Union — faithfully  to  the  world  of  mankind,  in  every  quarter  of 
the  Globe,  and  under  every  variety  of  condition  or  complexion — 
faithfully  to  that  creator,  God,  who  rules  the  world  in  justice  and 
mercy,  and  to  whom  our  final  account  must  be  made  up  by  the 
standard  of  those  attributes. 

Your  confidence  in  me  has  been  as  steadfast  as  it  has  been  liberal 
— I  say  it  in  gratitnde  and  not  in  pride.  It  has  descended  from 
father  to  son.  Since  I  was  elected  for  the  Plymouth  District,  the 
children,  then  at  the  schools,  have  become  voters  in  multitudes,  con- 
stituting the  majorities  of  all  recent  elections.  The  majorities  in 
my  favor  have  always  been  large,  even  when  unusual  expedients 
were  resorted  to  in  contesting  them. 

The  same  liberality  has  been  extended  to  me,  in  the  judgments  of 
my  constituents,  upon  rny  public  course  as  a  member  of  Congress, 
on  all  the  trying  occasions  when  great  interests  have  been  involved 
in  the  deliberations  of  the  National  Councils.  They  have  never 
trammelled  me  with  instructions.  They  have  never  held  meetings 
to  concoct  arid  transmit  to  me  resolutions  indicating  a  desire  that  I 
should  modify  my  own  opinions  to  make  them  more  conformable  to 
their  own.  They  have  left  me  free  in  the  exercise  of  my  represen- 
tative functions,  according  to  my  own  sense  of  right ;  and  rare,  very 
rare,  have  been  the  occasions  upon  which  even  the  public  journals 
of  the  District  have  exhibited  dissatisfaction  or  censure  from  any 
portion  of  my  constituents,  at  any  of  my  votes  or  speeches  in  the 
popular  deliberative  Assembly  of  the  Nation. 

When  I  first  received  the  honor  of  your  invitation  to  attend  this 
meeting,  it  occurred  to  me,  that  besides  the  occasion  it  would  afford 
me  to  return  to  you,  in  this  public  mariner,  my  heart-felt  thanks  for 


8 

all  the  favors  which,  in  a  continuous  career  of  twelve  years  service, 
I  had  received  at  your  hands,  the  opportunity  would  also  be  present- 
ed me,  of  reviewing  the  public  measures  of  those  twelve  years  in 
which  your  interests  have  been  deeply  involved — of  unfolding  to  you 
the  professions,  principles  and  practices,  of  the  federal  administra- 
tion of  these  United  States,  under  the  successive  Presidents,  invest- 
ed with  the  Executive  power,  from  the  day  when  I  took  my  seat  as 
your  Representative  in  the  House,  down  to  the  present  hour.  I 
trusted  it  would  be  in  my  power  to  present  to  your  contemplation, 
not  only  the  outward  and  ostensible  indications  of  federal  policy, 
proclaimed  and  trumpeted  abroad  as  the  maxims  of  the  Jackson, 
Van  Buren  and  Tyler  administrations,  but  to  lay  bare  their  secret 
purposes,  and  never  yet  divulged  designs  for  the  future  government 
or  dissolution  of  this  Union. 

Further  reflection  convinced  me  that  this  exposition  would  re- 
quire more  time,  than  you  could  possibly  devote  to  one  meeting  to 
hear  me.  My  friend  and  colleague,  Mr.  Appleton,  has  in  his  an- 
swer to  an  invitation  from  his  constituents  to  a  public  dinner,  lifted 
a  corner  of  the  veil,  and  opened  a  glance  at  the  monstrous  and  hor- 
rible object  beneath  it ;  but  South  Carolina  nullification  itself,  with 
its  appendages  of  separation,  secession  and  the  forty  bale  theory, 
were  but  the  struggles  of  Quixotism  dreaming  itself  Genius,  to  erect, 
on  the  basis  of  State  Sovereignty,  a  system  for  seating  South  Caroli- 
na slavery  on  the  throne  of  this  Union,  in  the  event  of  success — or 
of  severing  the  present  Union,  and  instituting,  with  a  tier  of  em- 
bryo Southern  States,  to  be  wrested  from  the  dismemberment  of 
Mexico,  a  Southern  slave  holding  confederation,  to  balance  the  free 
Republic  of  the  North. 

"The  passage  (says  Mr.  Appleton)  of  the  Revenue  Bill,  imposing 
discriminating  duties  with  a  view  to  the  protection  and  encourage- 
ment of  American  industry,  is,  under  the  circumstances,  an  event 
of  the  very  highest  importance.  Notwithstanding  the  system  had 
been  formally  established  in  1816,  and  fortified  by  succeeding  legis- 
lation ;  notwithstanding  its  success  in  the  development  of  our  re- 
sources, and  the  establishment  of  manufactures  and  arts,  surpassing 
the  expectation  of  the  most  sanguine ;  notwithstanding  the  immense 
investments  of  capital  made  on  the  faith  of  the  National  legislation, 
inviting  such  application  ;  the  attempt  was  seriously  entertained  of 
breaking  down  this  whole  system,  with  a  reckless  disregard  of  con- 
sequences, either  in  the  wanton  destruction  of  capital,  or  what  is  far 
more  important,  in  the  general  paralysis  of  the  industry  of  the  coun- 
try. The  origin  of  this  attempt  may  be  traced  to  the  mad  ambition 
of  certain  politicians  of  South  Carolina,  who,  in  1832,  formed  the 
project  of  a  Southern  confederacy,  severed  from  the  rest  of  the  Union, 
with  that  State  for  the  centre,  as  affording  more  security  to  the  slave 
States  for  their  peculiar  institutions,  than  exists  under  the  Federal 
Government. 

"  This  project  led  to  the  invention  of  a  theory  of  political  econo- 
my, which  was  maintained  with  an  ingenuity  and  perseverance 
worthy  of  a  better  cause,  founded  on  the  assumption  that  all  import 


duties  are,  in  effect,  direct  taxes  upon  exports.  So  indefatigable 
were  the  promulgators  of  this  theory,  that  the  whole  South  was  made 
to  believe  that  a  protective  tariff  was  a  system  of  plunder  levied  upon 
their  productions  of  cotton,  rice  and  tobacco — which  constituted  the 
bulk  of  our  exports  to  foreign  markets.  Nullification,  separation, 
and  the  forty  bale  theory,  have  passed  away  from  the  minds  of  the 
South,  and  it  is  very  evident  that  there  is  a  tendency  to  more  cor- 
rect views  on  the  subject :  but  such  continues  to  be  the  prevailing 
prejudice,  that  very  few  of  their  public  «ien  have  the  moral  courage 
to  vote  for  a  protective  tariff,  even  when  convinced  of  its  tendency 
to  promote  the  national  prosperity." 

Mr.  Appleton  remarks  that  nullification,  separation,  and  the  forty 
bale  theory  have  passed  away  from  the  minds  of  the  South,  and  this 
observation  is  true,  so  far  as  regards  the  arrayment  of  the  Palmetto 
standard  against  the  banner  of  the  Union ;  but  you  would  entertain 
a  very  erroneous  opinion  of  your  own  condition,  and  of  the  ruling 
spirit  of  the. present  day  at  the  South,  if  you  should  flatter  yourselves 
that  Southern  nullification  has  either  changed  its  nature,  or  relented 
from  its  purposes.  It  is  not  the  intention  of  Mr.  Appleton  to  con- 
vey to  his  constituents  and  fellow  citizens  of  this  Commonwealth 
that  idea.  He  knows  that  the  principles  of  nullification  were  never 
more  inflexibly  maintained,  never  more  inexorably  pursued  than  they 
have  been,  by  all  that  portion  of  the  South,  which  ever  gave  them 
countenance,  from  the  day  of  the  death  of  William  Henry  Harrison 
to  the  present.  I  cannot  doubt  but  that  he  knows  that  nullification 
is  the  creed  of  the  Executive  Mansion  at  Washington,  and  has  been 
so  from  the  4th  day  of  April,  1841.  I  hazard  nothing,  when  I  say 
that  nullification  is  the  acting  President's  conscience.  That  it  is  at 
the  root  of  all  his  vetos — as  well  as  of  that  master  piece  of  Executive 
Legislation  and  Statesmanship,  approving  and  signing  a  bill,  and  de- 
positing, in  the  Department  of  State,  reasons  against  it. 

Fellow  Citizens,  I  wish  to  speak  to  you  of  the  present  tenant  of 
the  People's  house  at  Washington,  with  all  the  respect  due  to  his 
present  accidental  dignity,  and  with  all  the  tenderness  due  to  the 
affliction  of  his  recent  domestic  bereavement.  I  would  even  gladly  - 
spare  his  public  character,  in  consideration  of  his  private  virtues, 
but  that  the  deepest  moral  obliquity  of  double  dealing  is  inseparable 
from  the  public  official  action  of  the  man  ;  and  that  this  moral  obli- 
quity is  urging  him  at  once  to  his  own  ruin  and  to  that  of  his  country. 

"  Allied,  alas  !  forever  to  the  crime, 

No  kind  exemption  can  the  person  claim, 
But  blackens  downward  in  the  lapse  of  time, 

The  equal  partner  of  eternal  shame." 

Charles  the  first,  and  George  the  third,  were  men  of  exemplary 
private  characters  ;  but  it  is  remarked  by  Blackstone,  that  the  great- 
est of  Charles's  misfortunes,  was  the  loss  in  the  opinion  of  his  peo- 
ple of  the  reputation  of  sincerity. 

And  let  me  observe,  that  double  dealing  men,  though  too  well 
adapted,  under  every  form  of  government,  to  make  their  way  in  the 
world,  and  to  attain  the  summit  of  power,  can  seldom  hold  their 


9 


10 

course*, long  under  the  inspection  of  the  public  eye,  without  being 
detected ;  and  when  detected,  seen  through  forever  after,  in  all  the 
windings  of  their  career. 

But,  Fellow  Citizens,  my  Constituents,  and  it  is  in  that  capacity 
that  I  now  earnestly  invite  your  attention,  as  to  a  topic  affecting  your 
interests  more  vitally  than  any  other  thing  on  this  side  of  heaven — 
Nullification,  portentous  and  fatal  as  it  is  to  the  prospect  and  wel- 
fare of  this  Union,  is  not  the  only  instrument  of  Southern  domina- 
tion, wielded  by  the  Executive  arm  at  Washington.  The  dismem- 
berment of  our  neighboring  Republic  of  Mexico,  and  the  acquisition 
of  an  immense  portion  of  her  territories,  from  the  mouth  of  the  Rio 
del  Norte  to  its  source,  and  thence  across  the  continent  of  North 
America,  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  including  the  port  and  harbor  of  San 
Francisco,  in  California,  has  been  a  gigantic  and  darling  project  of 
Andrew  Jackson,  already  formed  upon  his  first  accession  to  the  Pres- 
idency, shaped  and  matured  during  its  continuance,  and  which  he 
once  suffered  himself  to  be  deluded  into  the  belief  was  so  near  its 
accomplishment,  that  he  actually  offered  the  government  of  the  ter- 
ritory of  Texas  to  Hutching  G.  Burton,  a  distinguished  citizen  of 
North  Carolina,  now  deceased,  but  in  his  lifetime  well  known  to  me. 
The  policy  of  the  Jackson  administration  towards  Mexico  was  wor- 
thy of  Machiavel.  A  perpetual  negotiation  of  treaties,  never  to  be 
executed,  was  carried  on  in  combination  with  a  continual  urging  for 
the  cession  of  Texas ;  while  Texas  itself  was  stimulated  to  insur- 
rection against  Mexico,  and  finally  raised  the  banner  of  Independ- 
ence under  the  auspices  of  a  Tennessean  officer,  a  military  com- 
mander, favored  and  patronized  by  Jackson,  and  expatriated  for  the 
purpose  of  effecting  this  revolution — and  it  was  accomplished.  The 
Tennessean  neighbor  and  friend  of  Jackson  is  now  the  President  of 
the  Republic  of  Texas,  and  at  war  with  Mexico,  which  has  never 
yet  acknowledged  her  Independence.  But  the  United  States  have ; 
and  the  manner  in  which  that  recognition  was  effected  affords  a  lu- 
cid commentary  on  the  friendliness  and  good  feeling,  so  loudly  and 
confidently  boasted  of  at  the  same  time  toward  the  Republic  of 
Mexico. 

Fellow  Citizens,  I  did,  on  a  former  occasion,  when  the  projected 
annexation  of  Texas  became  a  subject  of  deliberation  in  Congress, 
in  a  speech  which,  according  to  the  arbitrary  rules  of  the  House,  I 
was  compelled  to  deliver  in  the  scanty  fragments,  often  interrupted, 
of  the  morning  hour,  from  day  to  day,  from  the  16th  of  June  to  the 
7th  of  July,  1838,  expose  and  lay  bare  the  double  dealing  and  perfidi- 
ous policy  of  the  Federal  Administration  towards  Mexico,  from  the 
accession  of  Andrew  Jackson  to  the  Presidency ;  his  secret  move- 
ments for  the  dismemberment  of  that  republic,  and  his  panting  pas- 
sion for  the  annexation,  by  cession  or  by  war,  of  Texas  to  this 
Union.  The  session  of  Congress  closed  before  I  could  finish  my 
speech,  so  that  my  demonstration  remained  incomplete ;  but  I  had 
furnished  abundant  evidence  to  satisfy  any  impartial  mind  of  the  Ja- 
nus-faced policy  which  I  then  charged  upon  the  administration,  and 
the  immediate  effect  of  these  disclosures  was  the  apparent  abandon- 


11 

ment  of  both  the  projects  of  war  with  Mexico  and  annexing  Texas, 
for  about  three  years.  My  speech  was  published  in  a  pamphlet,  for 
it  embraced  the  Right  of  Petition,  and  the  Freedom  of  Speech  and 
of  Debate,  not  less  than  the  annexation  of  Texas.  I  sent  copies  of 
it  to  some  of  my  constituents,  in  almost  every  town  of  the  district, 
and  I  presume  many  of  you  may  have  some  recollection  of  it. 
Among  the  omissions  to  my  demonstration  at  that  time,  of%the  double 
dealing  policy  of  the  administration,  was  the  evidence  of  the  manner 
in  which  the  recognition  of  the  Independence  of  Texas  was  smug- 
gled through  the  Congress.  As  the  present  Envoy  Extraordinary 
and  Minister  Plenipotentiary  to  Mexico  was  one  of  the  principal 
agents  in  that  transaction,  and  as  another  transaction  of  a  precisely 
similar  character,  and  in  pursuit  of  the  same  policy,  occurred  in  the 
last  half  hour  of  the  session  of  Congress  just  closed,  it  may  be 
proper  for  me  to  invite  your  earnest  and  anxious  attention  to  the 
facts  which  I  shall  now  disclose,  and  which  I  take  it  for  granted  are 
known  to  few  if  any  of  you. 

The  severance  of  Texas  from  Mexico,  and  its  annexation  to  the 
United  States,  was  undoubtedly  an  object  to  the  colonists  who  went 
from  the  United  States  to  settle  there,  of  earnest  desire.  The  Ex- 
Governor  of  Tennessee  went  there  with  the  intent  to  accomplish 
that  design,  just  at  the  time  when  General  Jackson  attained  the 
Presidency  of  the  United  States,  and  Houston's  design  to  conquer  and 
annex  Texas,  was,  if  not  concerted  with  him,  at  least  well  known  to 
him.  In  1834,  the  revolt  of  Texas  from  Mexico  was  declared ;  pre- 
cipitated if  not  chiefly  caused  by  the  abolition  of  Slavery  by  the 
Mexican  Government.  On  the  2d  of  March,  1836,  the  Texan  Dec- 
laration of  Independence  was  issued,  and  on  the  17th  of  the  same 
month  a  Constitution  of  the  Republic  was  proclaimed — framed  on 
the  model  of  those  of  our  Southern  States.  It  re-instituted  the  law 
of  slavery,  which  Mexico  had  abolished — denied  to  the  Legislature 
the  power  of  emancipating  slaves,  and  to  the  owners  of  slaves  the 
power  of  emancipating  them  without  the  consent  of  the  Legislature; 
it  excluded  all  Africans,  and  descendants  of  Africans  and  Indians, 
from  the  name,  rights  and  privileges  of  citizens,  forever;  interdicted 
the  very  entrance  into  the  State  of  any  free  colored  persons,  with- 
out the  consent  of  the  Legislature;  prohibited  forever  the  admission 
of  Africans  or  Negroes  into  the  Republic,  except  from  the  United 
States  of  America,  and  declared  it  piracy,  without  affixing  any  pen- 
alty to  the  commission  of  the  crime.  There  is  a  Declaration  of 
Rights  annexed  to  this  Constitution,  and  declared  to  be  a  part  of  it.v 
This  declaration  embodies  all  the  usual  guards  for  the  protection  of 
liberty,  but  it  avoids  the  base  hypocrisy  of  declaring  the  equality  o 
rights  of  all  men,  which  pollutes  some  of  our  slavery-sullied  Consti- 
tutions. The  Constitution  of  the  Republic  of  Texas,  more  warily 
worded,  virtually  repudiates  the  sublime  doctrine  sof  the  natural 
rights  of  man,  by  merely  saying,  "All  men,  when  they  form  a  social 
compact,  have  equal  rights" — and  you  all  see  how  wide  a  margin  this 
leaves  for  slavery  and  the  slave  trade,  in  their  most  hideous  and  dis- 
gusting forms.  . 


12- 

( 

Within  five  weeks  after  the  proclamation  of  this  constitution  fol- 
lowed the  battle  of  San  Jacinto  ;  and  from  that  day,  thfe  struggles  of 
the  southern  politicians,  who  ruled  the  councils  of  this  nation,  were 
for  upwards  of  two  years  unremitting,  and  unrestrained  by  any  prin- 
ciples of  honor,  honesty  and  truth — openly  avowed,  and  audaciously 
proclaimed  whenever  they  dared — clandestinely  pursued,  under  de- 
lusive masks  and  false  colors',  whenever  the  occasion  required. 

No  sooner  was  the  event  of  the  battle  of  San  Jacinto  known,  than 
memorials  and  resolutions  from  various  parts  of  the  Union,  were 
poured  in  upon  Congress,  calling  upon  that  body  for  the  immediate 
recognition  of  the  Independence  of  the  Republic  of  Texas.  Many 
of  these  memorials  and  resolutions  came  from  the  free  States,  and 
one  of  them  from  the  Legislature  of  Connecticut,  then  blindly  devo- 
ted to  the  rank  Southern  sectional  policy  of  the  Jackson  administra- 
tion, by  that  infatuation  of  Northern  sympathy  with  Southern  inter- 
ests, which  Mr.  Appletbn  points  out  to  our  notice,  and  the  true  pur- 
poses of  which  had  already  been  sufficiently  divulged  in  an  address 
of  Mr.  Clement  C.  Clay  to  the  Legislature  of  Alabama.  But  there 
was  another  more  hidden  impulse  to  this  extreme  solicitude  for  the 
recognition  of  the  Independence  of  Texas,  working  in  the  free 
States,  quite  as  ready  to  assume  the  mask  and  the  cap  of  liberty,  as 
the  slave-dealing  champions  of  the  rights  of  man.  The  Texan  Land 
and  Liberty  jobbers  had  spread  the  contagion  of  their  land-jobbing 
traffic  all  over  the  free  States  throughout  the  Union.  Land-jobbing 
— Stock-jobbing — Slave-jobbing — Rights  of  Man-jobbing,  were  all 
hand  in  hand/  sweeping  over  the  land  like  a  hurricane.  The  banks 
were  all  plunging  into  desperate  debts,  preparing  for  a  universal  sus- 
pension of  specie  payment,  under  the  shelter  of  Legislative  protec- 
tion, to  flood  the  country  with  irredeemable  paper.  Gambling  spec- 
ulation was  the  madness  of  the  day  ;  and  in  the  wide  spread  ruin 
which  we  are  now  witnessing  as  the  last  stage  of  this  moral  pesti- 
lence, Texan  bonds  and  Texqn  lands  form  no  small  portion  of  the 
fragments  from  the  wreck  of  money  corporations,  contributing  to 
their  assets  of  two  or  three  cents  to  the  dollar.  All  these  inter- 
ests furnished  vociferous  declaimers  for  the  recognition  of  Texan 
Independence. 

These  memorials;  and  resolutions  were  in  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives referred  to  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs,  which  on  the 
4th  day  of  July,  1836,  the  day  on  which  that  session  closed,  report- 
ed that  they  had  not  been  able  to  collect  such  information  of  the  po-- 
litical  condition  of  Texas  as  would  warrant  an  immediate  recogni- 
tion of  her  Independence,  but  that  the  President  had  taken  measures 
to  collect  that  information.  They  recommended,  therefore,  two 
resolutions,  both  of  which  were  adopted  by  the  House.  1.  That 
the  Independence  of  Texas  ought  to  be  acknowledged  by  the  United 
States,  whenever  satisfactory  information  should  be  received  that  it 
had  in  successful  operation  a  civil  government,  capable  of  perform- 
ing the  duties  and  fulfilling  the  obligations  of  an. independent  pow- 
er J  and  2.  That  the  House  of  Representatives  perceived  with  satis- 


13 

faction,  that  the  President  of  the  United  States  had  adopted  measures 
to  ascertain  the  political,  military  and  civil  condition  of  Texas. 

On  the  8th  of  December,  1835,  President  Jackson  had  com- 
menced that  same  sessi'on  of  Congress  with  a  paragraph  descanting 
upon  the  rigorous  obligation  of  neutrality  binding  upon  the  United 
States  and  their  citizens  in  this  civil  war  between  Mexico  and  Tex- 
as; and  had  announced  that  "  aware  of  the  strong  temptations  ex- 
isting and  powerful  inducements  held  out  to  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States  to  mingle  in  the  dissensions  of  our  immediate  neighbors,  in- 
structions had  been  given  to  the  District  Attorneys  of  the  United. 
States,  where  indications  warranted  it,  to  prosecute,  without  respect 
to  persons,  all  who  might  attempt  to  violate  the  obligations  of  our 
neutrality ." 

What  indications  had  preceded  the  battle  of  San  Jacinto,  fought 
under  Texan  banners,  by  a  commander  and  an  army  almost  to  a 
man  citizens  of  the  United  States,  the  world  has  never  been  inform- 
ed. The  obligations  of  neutrality  were  most  emphatically  acknow- 
ledged in  the  Message.  The  instructions  to  the  District  Attorneys 
had  been  to  prosecute,  without  respect  to  persons,  upon  mere  indi- 
cations of  an  attempt  to  violate  our  neutrality.  Regiments  of  com- 
batants were  daily  flocking  from  the  United  States  into  Texas,  to 
fight  the  battles  of  her  liberty;  but  the' District  Attorneys,  so  faith- 
fully instructed,  could  discover  no  indications  which  would  warrant 
a  prosecution,  till  the  battle  of  San  Jacinto  told  the  tale ;  and  after 
that,  the  memorials  and  resolutions  clamoring  for  the  recognition  of 
the  Independence  of  Texas,  and  the  report  of  the  committee  of  For- 
eign Affairs,  composed  of  five  members  from  the  slave  representa- 
tion, and  four 'northern  men  with  southern  principles,  will,  I  think, 
afford  to  you  sufficient  indications  of  the  sort  of  neutrality,  which 
prompted  a  Jackson  majority  of  the  House  to  close,  witji  two  such 
resolutions,  a  session  commenced  with  such  fair  and  faithful  profes- 
sions of  NEUTRALITY  in  President  Jackson's  Message  of  8th  Decem- 
ber, 1835. 

During  the  recess  between  that  session  of  Congress  and  the  one 
which  commenced  in  December,  1836,  President  Jackson  vigorous- 
ly pursued  his  measures  to  ascertain  the  political,  military  and  civil 
condition  of  Texas.  He  pursued  also,  at  the  same  time,  his  nego- 
tiations to  obtain  from  Mexico  the  cession  not  only  of  Texas,  but  of 
an  immense  territory  besides,  extending  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and 
including  the  Port- of  San  Francisco.  At  the  same  time  his  neu- 
trality between  Mexico  and  Texas  was  manifested  quite  characteris- 
tically, by  expressly  authorizing  General  Gaines  to  invade  Mexico 
and  take  post  at  Nacogdoches,  under  the  absurd  pretence  of  a  fear 
that  the  fugitive  remnant  of  the  Mexicans  from  the  field  of  San  Ja- 
cinto, were  stimulating  the  Camanche  Indians  to  invade  the  territo- 
ry of  the  United  States ;  which  movement  of  General  Gaines  was 
performed  in  perfect  harmony  with  those  of  the  Tennessean  com- 
mander in  chief  of  the  Texan  army,  General  Houston.  This  act  of 
flagrant  war,  by  order  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  tramp- 
ling at  once  upon  their  Constitution,  which  reserves  to  Congress 


14 

alone  the  right  of  declaring  war,  and  upon  the  territorial  rights  of 
Mexico,  was  met  by  the  most  earnest  and  persevering  remonstrances 
from  the  Minister  of  Mexico  in  the  United  States,  till  wearied  out 
by  the  paltering,  shuffling,  equivocating  diplomacy  of  Washington 
city,  he  demanded  his  passports  and  went  home,  leaving  behind  him 
an  indignant  exposure  of  the  whole  proceeding,  which  the  Jackson 
Cabinet  was  not  ashamed  to  hold  up,  as  itself  a  grievous  offence 
against  the  United  States. 

In  the  mean  time  President  Jackson  sent  a  special  agent  into  Tex- 
as, to  ascertain  the  political,  military  and  civil  condition  of  that  Re- 
public. At  the  commencement  of  the  next  session  of  Congress,  in 
the  annual  message,  he  delivered  a  sanctimonious  homily  on  the  sol- 
emn obligations  of  the  United  States  to  preserve  their  neutrality,  in 
the  conflict  between  Mexico  and  Texas,  and  was  quite  scandalized 
at  the  testy  humor  of  the  Mexican  Minister,  Gorostiza,  for  demand- 
ing his  passports  and  departing,  because  to  his  complaints  of  the  un- 
provoked and  wanton  invasion  of  the  Mexican  territory,  he  had  re- 
ceived nothing  but  insulting  and  prevaricating  answers — and  this 
captious  temper  of  the  Mexican  Minister  was  the  more  unaccounta- 
ble, because  he  knew  that  General  Gaines  had  received  a  reprimand 
from  the  Secretary  of  War,  for  executing  his  instructions,  ordering 
him  to  cross  the  boundary  of  the  Sabine  and  occupy  Nacogdoches 

A  fortnight  later,  President  Jackson,  on  the  22d  December,  1836, 
sent  a  Message  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  communicating 
the  reports  of  the  -special  Agent,  Henry  M.  Morfit,  on  his  mission  to 
ascertain  the  condition  of  Texas.  The  Message  enlarged  with  great 
earnestness  upon  the  inexpediency  of  recognizing  the  Independence 
of  Texas — insisting  that  the  measure  would  be  contrary  to  the  policy 
invaribly  observed  by  the  United  States  in^all  similar  cases  until  that 
time — that  it  would  be  marked  with  great  injustice  to  Mexico,  and 
peculiarly  liable  to  the  darkest  suspicions,  inasmuch  as  the  Texans 
were  almost  all  emigrants  from  the  United  States,  and  sought  the  re- 
cognition of  their  Independence,  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  obtain- 
ing their  annexation  to  the  United  States.  Honor,  honesty,  fair 
dealing,  and  a  regard  to  national  faith  and  national  fame,  all  concur- 
red, according  to  this  Message,  absolutely  to  forbid,  at  that  time,  the 
acknowledgment  by  the  United  States  of  Texas  as  an  independent 
State. 

But  during  the  brief  remnant  of  time  between  the  communication 
of  this  Message  to  the  House,  and  the  close  of  the  session,  which 
brought  to.  a  final  close  the  powers  of  Andrew  Jackson  as  President 
of  the  United  States,  he  was  busily  engaged  in  the  double  operation 
of  negotiating  for  the  cession  of  Texas  to  them,  through  the  joint 
agency  of  his  friend,  the  Tennessean  President  of  Texas,  Houston, 
and  the  captive  President  of  Mexico,  Santa  Anna,  and  of  kindling 
up  a  war  between  that  same  Mexico  and  the  U.  States.  The  war  was 
a  preliminary  step  to  the  acquisition  of  Texas  by  conquest,  and  the 
voluntary  co-operation  of  the  people  of  Texas  themselves,  without 
needing  the  acknowledgment  of  their  Independence ;  and  the  libe- 
ration of  Santa  Anna  from  his  captivity,  during  which  he  had  been 


15 

held  in  constant  terror  of  being  butchered  in  cold  blood,  was  finally 
conceded,  on  condition  that  he  should  come  to  Washington,  and 
pledge  to  Jackson  all  his  influence  to  secure  the  cession  by  Mexico 
of  Texas  to  the  United  States.  He  came  accordingly  to  Washing- 
ton ;  and  on  the  8th  of  February,  1837,  President  Jackson  sent  a 
thundering  War  Message  against  Mexico,  recommending  to  Congress 
to  pass  an  act,  authorizing  reprisals,  and  the  use  of  the  naval  force 
by  the  Executive  against  Mexico,  to  enable  them  [the  Executive]  in 
the  event  of  "  the  refusal  by  the  Mexican  Government  to  come  to  an 
amicable  adjustment  of  the  matters  in  controversy  between  us,  upon 
another  demand  thereof  made  from  on  board  one  of  our  vessels  of 
war,  on  the  coast  of  Mexico."  This  mode  of  enabling  the  Execu- 
tive to  come  to  an.  amicable  adjustment  of  controversies  with  a  for- 
eign nation,  was  no  other  than  a  demand  upon  Congress  to  authorize 
them  to  make  war  upon  Mexico,  without  any  declaration  at  all.  Who 
them  was  did  not  appear  on  the  face  of  the  Message,  but  as  its  au- 
thor was  about  to  close  his  career  as  President  of  the  United  States, 
and  Martin  Van  Buren  was  already  proclaimed  his  successor  for  a 
term  of  four  years,  if  Congress  had  granted  them  the  power  request- 
ed in  the  Message,  the  execution  of  it  would  hardly  have  been  un- 
dertaken by  Mr.  Van  Buren  alone. 

The  obsequious  Committees  of  Foreign  Affairs,  in  both  Houses 
of  Congress,  echoed  back  all  the  thunders  of  the  War  Message  against 
Mexico,  without  lisping  a  word  about  the  constitutional  exclusive 
prerogative  of  Congress  to  declare  war.  But  Congress  did  not  pass 
an  act  to  authorise  them  to  issue  reprisals,  nor  to  use  the  Navy  of  the 
United  States,  nor  to  proffer  an  amicable  adjustment  of  differences 
from  the  deck  of  a  man-of-war  on  the  Mexican  coast.  The  Commit- 
tee of  Foreign  Affairs  of  the  House,  reported  a  resolution  that  the 
Independence  of  the  Republic  of  Texas  ought  to  be  acknowledged, 
but  it  found  no  favor  with  the  House.  It  was  laid  on  the  table. 
Three  other  resolutions  to  the  same  effect  offered  by  individual  mem- 
bers from  the  slave  representation,  were  discarded  in  the  same  way 
— but  in  the  last  hour  of  that  session  of  Congress,  and  of  the  Presi- 
dency of  Andrew  Jackson,  an  amendment  to  the  general  appropria- 
tion bill  of  the  year,  moved  by  the  member  from  South  Carolina, 
now  Minister  of  the  United  States  to  Mexico,  made  an  appropriation 
"  for  the  outfit  and  salary  of  a  diplomatic  agent  to  be  sent  to  the  Re- 
public of  Texas,  whenever  the  President  of  the  United  States  may 
receive  satisfactory  evidence  that  Texas  is  an  Independent  power, 
and  shall  deem  it  expedient  to  appoint  such  Minister."  President 
Jackson  approved  and  signed  the  bill  containing  this  item  of  appro- 
priation, and  at  the  same  instant  sent  to  the  Senate  a  nomination  of 
a  Charge  d' Affaires  to  the  Republic  of  Texas,  which  was  instantly 
advised  and  consented  to  by  the  Senate ;  and  thus  it  was  that  the 
Independence  of  the  Republic  of  Texas,  was  recognized  by  the 
United  States.  What  interval  there  was  between  the  President's 
signing  the  bill  and  his  nomination  of  the  diplomatic  agent,  for  him 
to  receive  the  satisfactory  evidence  that  Texas  was  an  independent 
power,  and  what  had  become  of  the  solemn  moral  obligation  of  the 


United  States  to  observe  a  rigorous  neutrality  between  Mexico  and 
Texas,  so  emphatically  asserted  in  the  opening  ^Message  of  the  ses- 
sion, and  so  urgently  recommended  in  the  Message  of  22d  December, 
1836,  you  are  left  to  judge,  and  I  leave  you  to  judge  with  what  face 
the  United  States  can  boast  of  their  amicable  treatment  of  Mexico, 
or  of  the  fair  dealing  of  their  Government  with  her. 

But  the  great  work,  the  slave-breeding  conspiracy  against  the  free- 
dom of  the  North,  of  which  nullification  and  the  forty  bale  theory 
formed  one  division, ,  Texas  and  the  dismemberment  of  Mexico 
another,  was  but  half  consummated  by  the  closing  act  of  Jackson's 
administration.  The  controlling  object  of  this  whole  system  of 
policy  was,  and  yet  is,  to  obtain  a  nursery  of  slave  holding  States,  to 
break  down  forever  the  ascendant  power  of  the  free  States,  and  to 
fortify,  beyond  all  possibility  of  reversal,  the  institution  of  slavery. 
The  day  after  the  appointment  of  the  Charge  d'Affaires  to  the  lie- 
public  of  Texas,  Mr.  Van  Buren,  a  Northern  man  with  Southern 
principles,  assumed  the  functions  of  President  of  the  United  States. 
The  recognition  of  the  independence  of  Texas  availed  nothing, 
and  was  much  worse  than  nothing,  without  her  annexation  to  the 
United  States. 

Mr.  Van  Buren's  administration"  commenced  with  a  .call  for  a 
special  session  of  Congress,  and  on  the  3d  of  October,  1837,  he 
communicated,  in  answer  to  a  resolution  of  inquiry  from  the  House 
of  Representatives,  a  report  from  the  Secretary  of  State,  John  For- 
syth,  a  correspondence  with  Memucan  Hunt,  Envoy  Extraordinary 
and  Minister  Plenipotentiary  of  the  Republic  of  Texas,  containing 
the  formal  proposition  for  her  annexation  to  the  United  States,  and 
the  answer  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  declining  it. 

But  the  slave  breeding  passion  for  the  annexation  was  not  to  be  so 
disconcerted.  At  the  ensuing  session  of  Congress  numerous  pe- 
titions and  memorials  for  and  against  the  annexation,  were  presented 
to  the  House,  and  with  resolutions  of  the  State  Legislatures  of  Ala- 
bama, Tennessee  and  Mississippi,  in  favor  of  the  annexation,  and  of 
,  Vermont,  Rhode  Island,  Massachusetts,  Ohio,  and  Michigan,  against 
it,  were  referred  to  the  Committee  of  Foreign  Affairs,  who,  without 
ever  taking  them  into  consideration,  towards  the  close  of  the  session 
asked  to  be  discharged  from  the  consideration  of  them  all.  It  was 
on  this  report  that  the  debate  arose,  in  which  I  exposed  the  whole 
system  of  duplicity  and  perfidy  towards  Mexico,  which  had  marked 
the  Jackson  administration  from  its  commencement  to  its  close, 

It  silenced  the  clamors  for  the  annexation  of  Texas  to  this  Union 
for  three  years,  till  the  catastrophe  of  the  Van  Buren  administration. 
The  people  of  the  free  States  were  lulled  into  the  belief  that  the 
whole  project  was  abandoned,  and  that  they  should  hear  no  more  of 
slave  trade  cravings  for  the  annexation  of  Texas.  Had  Harrison  lived 
they  would  have  heard  no  more  of  them  to  this  day — but  no  sooner 
was  John  Tyler  installed  in  the  President's  house,  than  Nullification 
and  Texas,  and  war  with  Mexico  rose  again  upon  the  surface,  with 
eye  steadily  fixed  upon  the  polar  star  of  Southern  slave-dealing  supre- 
macy in  the  government  of  the  Union. 


17 

Very  shortly  after  the  accession  of  Mr.  Tyler,  in  the  summer  of 
1841,  after  three  years  interval,  and  numerous  givings  'out  of  the 
aversion  of  the  Texans  to  being  annexed  to  the  United  States,  a 
military  expedition  was  fitted  out  by  the  then  President  of  Texas, 
against  the  Mexican  city  of  Santa  Fe,  at  the  head  of  the  Rio  Bravo. 
They  marched  in  battle  array,  and  although,  until  it  met  with  disas- 
ter, scarcely  known  or  noticed  in  this  part  of  the  country,  it  was  so 
well  |known  in  those  south-western  States  bordering  on  Texas,  that 
this  invasion  was  carried  on  chiefly  by  citizens  of  these  United 
States,  even  now  professing  to  hold  with  Mexico  the  friendly  inter- 
course of  peace.  Had  the  expedition  been  against  the  city  of  Phila- 
delphia— and  General  Jackson  had  been  called  out  in  command  of  a 
militia  corps  to  intercept  them,  and  on  intercepting  them,  had 
found  among  them  one  or  two  hundred  of  British  subjects,  fresh 
from  the  Bahama  Islands,  his  disposal  of  Arbuthnot  and  Ambrister 
furnishes  conclusive  evidence  of  what  he  would  have  deemed  the 
rightful  exercise  of  the  laws  of  war  with  regard  to  them.  He  would 
have  given  them  the  formality  of  a  court  martial,  and  then  have  hung 
them  upon  the  first  tree,  as  warning  to  British  subjects  not  to  meddle 
with  the  quarrels  of  their  neighbors.  The  Texan  expedition  was  ill 
starred — -instead  of  taking  and  rioting  upon  the  beauty  and  booty  of 
Santa  Fe,  they  were  all  captured  themselves,  without  even  the  glory 
of  putting  a  price  upon  their  lives.  They  surrendered  without  firing 
a  gun.  The  administration  at  Washington  had  endured  all  this  open 
barefaced  violation  of  neutrality  without  moving  a  finger  or  uttering 
a  word  to  control  it ;  but  the  instant  the  expedition  was  prostrated 
in  ignominious  defeat,  was  roused  by  messenger  after  messenger, 
and  convulsed  with  agitation,  calling  for  the  vindictive  arm  of  the 
nation,  to  shed  the  blood  of  war  to  rescue  these  ruffians  from  the 
captivity  into  which  they  had  fallen,  or  to  bully  the  Mexican  Gov- 
ernment into  the  free  release  of  all  this  lawless  banditti.  They  un- 
dertook it  and  they  succeeded.  Santa  Anna,  whom  we  are  all  ac- 
customed to  revile  as  a  monster  of  human  cruelty,  caused  them  all 
to  be  released,  with  a  gentle  warning  to  them  and  their  countrymen, 
not  to  be  caught  again  in  repeating  the  same  experiment ;  while  the 
present  President  of  Texas,  the  Tennessean  victor  of  San  Jacinto, 
issues  proclamations  and  Letters  of  Instructions,  and  grants  promi- 
ses of  lands  to  his  recruiting  officers  at  New  Orleans,  and  raises 
regiments  of  Uncle  Sam's  children  for  another  invasion  of  Mexico  ; 
and  while  the  guardian  of  this  nation's  neutrality  slumbers  in  the 
palace  at  Washington,  and  the  spirit  and  argumentation  of  diploma- 
cy are  circulated  to  demonstrate  before  the  public  opinion  of  civiliz- 
ed men,  the  fairness,  and  equity,  arid  generosity  of  all  our  political 
intercourse  with  the  Republic  of  Mexico. 

My  countrymen,  rely  upon  it,  there  is  now,  even  now,  in  the 
political  relations  of  your  administration  at  Washington,  with  Mexico 
and  with  Texas,  treachery  to  your  interests  of'the  deepest  dye.  I 
mean  not  to  implicate  in  this  censure  the  Secretary  of  State,  whose 
official  correspondence  on  this  subject  is  marked  with  his  usual 


18 

ability,  and  who  having  a  thesis  to  maintain,  has  maintained  it'as  a 
duty  to  be  discharged. 

That  the  Sante  Fe  expedition  originated  and  was  concerted  within 
these  States  there  can  be  no  doubt,  probably  in  the.  State  of  Ten- 
nessee. That  it  was  known,  countenanced  and  encouraged  at  the 
Presidential  house,  is  more  than  suspected.  For  while  it  was  on 
foot,  and  before  it  was  known,  frequent  hints  were  given  in  public 
journals,  moved  by  Executive  impulses,  that,  at  the  ensuing  winter 
session,  the  annexation  of  Texas  was  to  be  introduced  by  a  citizen  of 
the  highest  distinction.  The  Legislatures  of  Tennessee,  Alabama, 
Mississippi,  Louisiana,  South  Carolina,  and  even  Kentucky,  actually 
brought  the  Pandora's  box  again  before  Congress,  and  the  total  fail- 
ure of  the  Santa  Fe  expedition,  with  the  early  discomfiture  of  the  • 
war  faction  in  Congress,  discarded  again  for  the  moment,  and  only 
for  the  momefnt,  the  project  to  which  Southern  nullification  clings 
with  the  grasp  of  death. 

The  secret  participation  of  your  administration  at  Washington  in 
this  incursion  of  banditti  from  Texas  against  Santa  Fe,  and  that  it 
was  organized  for  the  express  purpose  of  provoking  a  war  between 
the  United  States  and  Mexico,  is  evidenced  not  only  by  the  unjusti- 
fiable tone  of  menace  assumed  by  this  administration,  in  demanding 
the  release  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States,  taken  prisoners  in 
arms  upon  this  marauding  expedition — nor  yet  only  by  the  enor- 
mously extravagant  increase,  both  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  urgently 
recommended  to  Congress  in  the  reports  of  both  the  Secretaries  of 
War  and  of  the  Navy,  at  the  commencement  of  the  session,  contem- 
poraneous with  the  President's  wailings  at  the  bankrupt  condition  of 
the  Treasury,  and  his  ludicrous  recommendations  of  economy  and 
retrenchment  of  the  public  expenditures  ;  but  I  will  now  tell  you  of 
another  legislative  exploit,  achieved  in  the  last  half  hour  of  the  late 
session  of  Congress,  to  make  you,  my  constituents,  pay,  with  your 
money,  for  this  blustering  rescue  of  American  citizens  from  the 
punishment  which  they  had  incurred  for  warring  against  Mexico  un- 
der the  banners  of  Texas. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  late  session,  a  Treaty  had  been  conclud- 
ed with  the  Wyandot  tribe  of  Indians,  which  required  an  appropria- 
tion of  money  to  be  carried  into  execution.  A  bill  for  that  purpose 
was  introduced  into  the  Senate ;  and  what  think  you  was  tacked  to 
it  while,  on  its  passage  through  that  body. 

First,  a  sum  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  defray  the  ex- 
penses of  the  Judicial  Courts  of  the  United  States,  in  the  year. 

At  a  preceding  period  of  the  session,  Congress,  in  a  paroxysm  of 
retrenchment  and  reform,  had  curtailed  this  sum  of  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  from  the  sum  proposed  by  the  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means,  for  the  expenses  of  the  Judicial  Courts,  in  the  general, 
civil  and  diplomatic  appropriation  bill.  When  the  motion  for  re- 
trenching this  hundred  thousand  dollars  was  made,  the  Chairman  of 
the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  Millard  Fillmore,  one  of  the 
ablest,  most  faithful,  and  fairest  minded  men  with  whom  it  has  been 
my  fortune  to  serve  in  public  life,  remonstrated  against  the  reduc- 


19 

tion,  and  urged  the  indispensable  necessity  of  the  appropriation  to 
defray  the  unavoidable  expenses  of  the  Courts  in  the  administration 
of  justice  ;  but  he  spoke  in  vain.  The  cry  for  retrenchment  drown- 
ed his  voice,  and  the  appropriation  was  reduced.  But  now,  just  at 
the  close  of  the  session,  it  was  found,  that  unless  the  appropriation 
was  restored,  the  Judicial  Courts  could  not  be  held,  and  justice  her- 
self would  be  at  a  stand.  So  the  notable  device  was  resorted  to  in 
the  Senate  of  inserting  this  retrenched  hundred  thousand  dollars,  as 
an  amendment  to  the  bill  for  defraying  the  expenses  of  the  Wyandot 
Treaty — and  it  was  so  introduced,  was  adopted  by  both  Houses  of 
Congress,  approved  and  signed  by  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  is  now  the  law  of  the  land. 

You  remember,  fellow  citizens,  that  the  main  stay  of  President 
Tyler's  reasons  for  his  veto  of  the  first  Tariff  Bill  was,  that  it  con- 
nected together  two  different  subjects ;  and  you  have  not  forgotten 
the  display  of  argument  by  which  he  proved  how  unconstitutional* 
and  how  inadmissible  it  was  that  Congress  should  send  to  him,  for 
his  approval  and  signature,  a  bill  embracing  two  different  subjects. 
Can  you  discover  any  congruity,  not  to  say  any  identity  of  subject, 
between  appropriations  to  defray  the  expenses  of  a  Treaty  with  the 
Wyandot  Indians,  and  for  defraying  the  expenses  of  the  Judicial 
Courts?  Yet  President  Tyler  approved  and  signed  the  bill,  without 
even  depositing  in  the  Department  of  State  his  reasons  against  it. 
But  the  second  tack  to  the  Wyandot  Treaty  appropriation  bill  was  a 
sum  of  six  thousand  dollars,  if  so  much  should  be  needed,  to  defray 
the  expenses  of  the  Legation  of  the  United  States  in  Mexico,  in 
maintaining,  supporting,  and  sending  home,  the  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  taken  prisoners  in  aggressive  war  against  Mexico,  un- 
der Texan  colors,  in  a  trading  expedition  to  take  possession  of  Santa 
Fe.  Impartial  neutrality  !  magnanimous  justice  to  Mexico  ! 

This  appropriation  of  six  thousand  dollars,  lawless  in  every  sense 
of  the  word,  of  your  money,  my  constituents,  yes,  of  the  hard  earn- 
ings of  your  industry  by  the  sweat  of  your  brows,  was  introduced 
into  the  Wyandot  Treaty  bill,  by  a  Senator  from  South  Carolina, 
one  of  the  field  marshals  of  nullification  from  its  first  outbreak ; 
one  of  the  sturdiest  champions  for  the  exclusion  of  your  interests 
from  the  National  protection,  and  one  of  the  most  eloquent  of  the 
land-robbing,  debt-paying  Anglo-Saxon  race,  scorching  with  thirst 
for  the  annexation  of  Texas  to  this  Union,  to  rivet  forever  the  chains 
of  slavery,  and  to  bind  them  on  you  and  your  posterity  forever.  It 
was  introduced  without  law,  without  estimates  from  any  department, 
without  color  of  claim  from  any  pretence  of  authority  for  the  expen- 
diture. Yet  the  Senate  adopted  it  in  silent  acquiescence.  The  bill 
was  sent  to  the  House  on  the  day  before  the  close  of  the  session. 
The  House  at  once  struck  this  item  of  appropriation  out  of  the  Bill, 
and  the  Senate  concurred  in  the  exclusion.  You  think  your  money 
and  that  of  your  country  is  rescued  from  the  hand  of  the  spoiler  ? 
Not  at  all.  In  the  last  hour  of  the  session  the  same  Senator  from 
South  Carolina  offers  a  joint  resolution  of  the  two  Houses,  making 
the  same  appropriation  of  six  thousand  dollars,  which,  but  the  dey 


20 

before,  had  been  excluded  from  the  Wyandot  Treaty  Bill.  It  slip- 
ped through  the  Senate  in  silence  and  came  to  the  House.  The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  expressly  forbids  the  drawing  of 
any  money  from  the  Treasury,  unless  upon  appropriations  made  B.Y 
LAW — and  it  prescribes  the  enactment  of  Laws,  exclusively  by  Bill, 
and  not  by  joint  resolution.  Never  before  had  money  been  drawn 
from  the  Treasury  by  joint  resolution,  except  it  were  money  previ- 
ously authorized  to  be  drawn  by  law.  The  distinction  had  been 
scrupulously  adhered  to  from  the  first  organization  of  the  Govern- 
ment, until  that  day.  When  the  resolution  came  to  the  House  they 
were  in  impatient  confusion,  waiting  for  the  moment  of  » adjourn- 
ment. The  instant  the  resolution  was  read,  the  previous  question 
was  moved  on  its  passing  to  a  seconcj  reading.  I  instantly  objected 
that  no  money  could  be  drawn  from  the  Treasury,  on  such  a  resolu- 
tion ;  without  any  attempt  to  answer  me,  a  bare  majority  of  a  doubt- 
.ful  quorum  sustained  the  previous  question,  and  passed  the  resolu- 
tion to  a  second  reading.  There  is  a  rule  of  the  House,  that  every 
appropriation  of  money  shall  be  first  considered  in  committee  of  the 
whole  House.  I  appealed  to  that  rule,  and  was  told  it  was  too  late. 
The  previous  question  was  again  moved  and  sustained,  and  again  at 
the  third  readirfg  ;  the  resolution  was  thus  driven  through,  and  that 
same  hour  was  approved  and  signed  by  the  President,  and  the  only 
barrier  in  the  forms  of  the  Constitution  against  the  most  reckless 
and  profligate  squandering  of  the  people's  money  is,  I  fear,  broken 
down  forever.  A  more  fatally  contagious  example  of  embezzlement 
of  the  public  moneys  could  not,  indeed,  have  been  given.  I  remon- 
strated, after  the  close  of  the  session,  against  the  drawing  of  any 
money  from  the  Treasury  under  this  resolution,  at  both  the  Depart- 
ments of  State  and  of  the  Treasury  ;  with  no  better  success  than  I 
had  had  in  the  House. 

Fellow  citizens, — You  can  have  but  a  faint  and  imperfect  concep- 
tion of  the  character  of  this  transaction,  without  recollecting  the  ob- 
ject of  this  prostration  of  constitution,  laws,  rules  for  conducting 
business  in  the  Houses  of  Congress,  and  every  bolt  and  bar  protec- 
tive of  your  public  Treasury.  It  was  the  dismemberment  of  Mexico, 
and  the  annexation  of  an  immense  portion  of  its  territory  to  the  slave 
representation  of  this  Union.  Ask  yourselves  if  the  internal  evi- 
dence is  not  irresistible,  that  the  expedition  against  Sante  Fe  was 
planned  within  your  boundaries,  and  committed  to  the  execution  of 
your  citizens,  under  the  shelter  of  Texan  banners  and  commissions. 

Let  me  advert  again  to  the  important  disclosure  in  the  letter  of 
Mr.  Appleton  to  his  constituents,  from  which  I  have  taken  the  liber- 
ty of  reading  to  you  an  extract.  Nullification  was  generated  in  the 
hot-bed  of  slavery.  Its  drew  its  first  breath  in  the  land,  where  the 
meaning  of  the  word  democracy  is  that  a  majority  of  the  people  are 
the  goods  and  chattels  of  the  minority.  That  more  than  one  half  of 
the  people,  are  not  men,  women  and  children,  but  things  to  be  treat- 
ed by  their  owners,  not  exactly  like  dogs  and  horses,  but  like  tables, 
chairs  and  joint-stools.  That  they  are  not  even  fixtures  to  trie-soil, 
as  in  countries  where  servitude  is  divested  of  its  most  hideous  fea- 


21 

tures;  not  even  beings  in  the  mitigated  degradation  from  humanity 
of  beasts,  or  birds,  or  creeping  things  ;  but  destitute  not  only  of  the 
sensibilities  of  our  own  race  of  men,  but  of  the  sensations  of  all  ani- 
mated nature.  That  is  the  native  land  of  nullification,  and  it  is  a 
theory  of  Constitutional  law;  worthy  of  its  origin.  Democracy,  pure 
democracy,  has  at  least  its  foundation  in  a  generous  theory  of  human 
rights.  It  is  founded  on  the  natural  equality  of  mankind.  It  is  the 
corner  stone  of  the  Christian  religion.  It  is  the  first  clement  of  all 
lawful  government  upon  earth.  Democracy  is  self-government  of 
the  community,  by  the  conjoint  will  of  the  majority  of  numbers. 
What  communion,  what  affinity  can  there  be,  between  that  principle 
and  nullification,  which  is  the  despotism  of  a  corporation, — unlimit- 
ed, unrestrained,  sovereign  power  ?  Never,  never  was  amalgamation 
so  preposterous  and  absurd,  as  that  of  nullification  and  democracy. 
I  need  not  tell  you,  fellow  citizens,  that  nullification  was  no  part 
of  the  political  system  of  Andrew  Jackson.  It  had  been  born  and 
bred  in  South  Carolina,  during  the  term  of  his  immediate  predeces- 
sor ;  reared  as  a  giant  to  demolish  the  protective  and  internal  im- 
provement policy,  introduced,  fostered  and  promoted  by  none  more 
than  South  Carolina  herself,  but  which  by  experience  was  found  to 
favor  more  the  prosperity  of  free  than  of  slave  labor.  Jackson  had 
entered  upon  his  office  of  chief  magistrate,  the  friend  of  a  judicious 
tariff — of  a  national  bank — of  internal  improvement,  and  of  free  do- 
mestic industry ;  but  with  the  dream  of  dismembering  Mexico,  and 
of  restoring  slavery  to  Texas,  and  of  surrounding  the  South  with  a 
girdle  of  slave  States,  to  eternize  the  blessings  of  the  peculiar  insti- 
tutions, and  spread  them  like  a  garment  of  praise  over  the  whole 
North  American  Union.  Nullification  was  no  part  of  his  system, 
but  he  turned  it  to  good  account  for  the  promotion  of  his  own  pur- 
poses. Nullification  was  a  system  to  make  a  spurious,  unlimited 
State  sovereignty,  ride  over  the  authority  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  who  made  their  Constitutions,  because  they  had  conferred, 
on  the  general  government  only  limited  powers.  But  sovereignty 
was  unlimited.  The  States  were  sovereign.  Their  power  was  un- 
limited, and  therefore  paramount  to  that  of  the  Federal  government. 
This  was  the  ingenuity  of  which  the  forty  bale  theory  was  a  collateral 
emanation.  But  the  first  batteries  of  nullification  were  opened  against 
the  government  of  the  Union  itself,  and  Jackson  was  at  its  head. 
Nullification  made  a  demonstration  of  actual  rebellion.  It  assem- 
bled a  Convention  of  the  people  of  South  Carolina,  which  by  sove- 
reign State  right,  nullified  a  revenue  law  of  the  Union.  Jackson 
issued  his  proclamation,  declaring  his  determination  to  execute  the 
law.  The  faithful,  believing,  confiding  North,  even  our  own  Fan- 
euil  Hall,  pledged  him  their  support — Congress  enacted  a  law  giv- 
ing him  ample  powers  to  reduce  the  rebels  to  submission.  At  that 
same  moment,  the  honest  nullifier,  by  a  compromise  of  slavery, 
against  the  free  labor  of  the  North,  succeeded  in  saving  himself  from 
the  penalties  of  rebellion,  in  withdrawing  from  the  absurdities  of  the 
forty  bale  theory,  and  in  establishing  the  supremacy  of  the  South  at 
the  Capital,  and  at  the  President's  house,  for  at  least  nine  years. 


22 

Jackson,  holding  in  his  hand  the  rod  of  chastisement,  in  the  force 
bill,  instead  of  using  it,  accepted  the  compromise,  and  combining  it 
with  the  projected  dismemberment  of  Mexico,  and  acquisition  of 
Texas,  with  the  extirpation  of  the  Indians  ffom  the  Southern  States, 
and  with  the  sacrifice  of  all  the  public  lands  to  private  adventurers, 
and  to  the  States  in  which  the  lands  are  situated — engrafted  upon 
these  principles  the  extinguishment  of  all  internal  improvement  by 
the  authority  of  the  national  government ;  the  suppression  of  all 
public  credit,  because  there  was  no  public  debt ;  uncompromising 
hostility  to  a  national  bank,  for  the  absurdity  of  an  exclusive  hard 
money  currency  ;  and  the  reduction  of  the  duties  on  imports  to  an 
imaginary  scale  of  public  economy,  formed  a  system  of  administra- 
tion totally  adverse  to  that  founded  by  Washington,  at  the  first  or- 
ganization of  the  government,  and  continued  with  slight  modifica- 
tions, rather  of  theory  than  of  practice,  until  the  advent  of  Jackson  to 
the  Presidency.  His  system  was  unfolded  at  great  length  in  his  an- 
nual message  to  Congress,  of  December,  1832,  contrasting  so  dia- 
metrically with  his  proclamation  of  almost  the  same  date,  against 
South  Carolina  nullification,  that  on  reading  them,  men  stared  at 
each  other,  and  inquired  which  was  the  bane,  and  which  the  antidote. 
The  message  was  in  truth  the  prelude  to  the  compromise  between 
nullification,  State  supremacy,  and  a  horizontal  tariff,  at  the  expense 
of  the  free  labor  of  the  North.  The  Jackson  system  was  at  the 
time  reviewed  and  controverted  in  the  report  of  the  minority  of  the 
Committee  of  Manufactures,  in  February,  1833;  but  it  was  estab- 
lished by  the  tariff  compromise  of  that  same  session,  working,  with 
all  the  subsequent  arbitrary  and  oppressive  measures  of  that  and  the 
next  succeeding  administration,  a  gradual  but  steadily  spreading 
decline  and  fall  of  the  public  credit,  of  the  national  revenue,  of  the 
general  welfare,  till  they  were  found,  at  the  Presidential  election  of 
1840,  one  universal  ruin.  The  spirit  of  the  people  throughout  the 
Union  had,  during  the  same  time,  been  gradually  and  slowly  roused 
to  a  pitch  of  almost  equally  universal  indignation  ;  a  succession  of 
enormous  Executive  usurpations  had  kindled  a  flame  which  could 
not  be  suppressed — a  party  was  formed  on  the  express  principle  of 
resistance  to  Executive  usurpations,  and  took  the  name  of  Whigs, 
as  most  significant  of  their  common  impulse  to  check  and  control 
these  usurpations,  and  to  place  in  the  Executive  chair  a  chief  who 
would  revert  to  the  political  system  and  principles  of  Washington. 

The  total  abandonment  by  President  Jackson,  of  all  internal  im- 
provement by  the  authority  of  Congress,  and  of  all  national  protec- 
tion to  domestic  industry,  was  a  part  of  the  same  system,  which,  in 
the  message  of  December,  1832,  openly  recommended  to  give  away 
gratuitously  all  the  public  lands,  and  renounce  forever  all  idea  of 
raising  any  revenue  from  them.  This  was  nullification  in  its  most 
odious  feature.  The  public  lands  are  the  richest  inheritance  ever 
bestowed  by  a  bountiful  Creator  upon  any  national  community.  All 
the  mines  of  gold,  silver,  and  precious  stones  on  the  face  or  in  the 
bowels  of  the  globe,  are  in  value  compared  to  them  but  the  dust  of 
the  balance.  Ages  upon  ages  of  continual  progressive  improvement, 


23 

physical,  moral,  political,  in  the  condition  of  the  whole  people  of 
this  Union,  were  stored  up  in  the  possession  and  disposal  of  those 
lands.  The  root  of  the  doctrine  of  nullification  is,  that  if  the  inter- 
nal improvement  of  the  country  should  be  left  to  the  legislative  man- 
•agementof  the  National  Government,  and  the  proceeds  of  the  sales 
of  the  public  lands  should  be  applied  as  a  perpetual  and  self-accumu- 
lating fund  for  that  purpose,  the  blessings  unceasingly  showered  upon 
the  people  by  this  process,  would  so  grapple  the  affections  of  the 
people  to  the  national  authority,  that  it  would,  in  process  of  time, 
overshadow  that  of  the  State  governments,  and  settle  the  preponder- 
ancy  of  power  in  the  free  States — and  then,  the  undying  worm  of 
conscience  twinges  with  terror  for  the  fate  of  the  peculiar  institu- 
tions. Slavery  stands  aghast  at  the  prospective  promotion  of  the 
general  welfare,  and  flies  to  nullification  for  defence  against  the  en- 
ergies of  freedom  and  the  inalienable  rights  of  man. 

The  abdication  by  Congress,  under  the  influence  of  this  system 
of  policy,  of  all  power  of  appropriating  money  to  objects  of  internal 
improvement,  cast  back  upon  the  Legislatures  of  the  several  States 
the  burdensome  duties  of  that  all  pervading  interest  and  passion  of 
the  people.  For  most  happily,  the  passion  as  well  as  the  interest  of 
the  free  people  of  this  Union  for  their  own  improvement,  is  so  deeply 
seated  in  their  hearts,  that  no  sophistication  of  slavery  can  extin- 
guish or  suppress  it.  The  Legislatures  of  the  several  States  assumed, 
each  within  their  own  borders,  the  exercise  of  the  beneficent  power, 
repudiated  by  the  slavery-palsied  arm  of  the  nation,  and  commenced, 
on  a  too  gigantic  soale,  many  stupendous  works  of  internal  improve- 
,.ment  at  home.  They  involved  themselves  in  debt  beyond  their 
means  of  meeting  their  immediate  engagements.  They  relied  upon 
their  right  to  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands,  to  relieve 
them  from  the  oppressive  burdens  of  those  engagements,  and  Con- 
gress, while  yielding  to  the  newly  proclaimed  policy  of  President 
Jackson,  by  suspending  the  exercise  of  their  own  power  of  appro- 
priating money  for  works  of  internal  improvements,  passed  on  the 
'«M  of  March,  1833,  an  act  for  distributing  the  proceeds  of  the  pub- 
lic lands  among  the  States.  President  Jackson  neither  approved  and 
signed  it,  nor  returned  it  to  the  House  with  his  objections.  He  put 
it  in  his  pocket,  and  as  the  Congress  itself  expired  on  the  next  day, 
it  never  became  a  law ;  so  that  after  crippling  and  disabling  the  Gen- 
eral Government  of  the  power  to  promote  the  improvement  of  the 
country,  the  Jackson  policy  wrested  from  the  separate  States  the 
property  of  their  people,  and  the  means  of  prosecuting  works  of 
public  improvement  for  themselves. 

Thus  you  perceive,  my  constituents  and  friends,  that  this  robbery 
of  the  public  lands,  this  deadly  hostility  to  all  internal  improvement 
and  to  a  protective  tariff,  are  all  parts  of  one  system  of  policy,  of  which 
nullification  is  the  seminal  principle,  and  would  to  God  I  could  say 
to  you,  as  my  friend,  Mr.  Appleton,  says  of  the  forty  bale  theory, 
one  of  its  parasite  suckers,  that  it  has  passed  away — but  I  can  give 
you  no  such  cheering  encouragement — Nullification  is  seated  iii  the 


24 

chair  of  State.  It  has  dictated  six  vetoes  in  the  space  of  eighteen 
months,  and  one  hermaphrodite  approval.  It  has  signed  only  upon 
compulsion  the  tariff  bill,  mutilated  by  the  suppression  of  the  section 
.to  distribute  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands.  But  mu- 
tilated as  it  is,  you  will  see  by  the  following  article  in  the  Atlas  of 
this  morning,  that  it  is  threatened  with  nullification. 

From  the  Boston  Atlas  of  17th  September,  1842. 

TREASON  THREATENED. — The  Columbian  South  Carolinian,  (Mr  Cal- 
houn's  organ,)  berates  Mr.  Tyler  roundly  for  signing  the  Tariff  Bill — which 
it  denounces  as  *  the  most  flagrantly  protective,  fraudulent,  perfidious,  op- 
pressive, unjust,  and  unconstitutional  Tariff  Bill  that  has  ever  been  passed." 
"  If  it  be  not  repealed,  (it  says,)  when  the  Democrats  come  into  power,  it 
must  be  nullified  ;  and  nothing  prevents  us  from  urging  an  immediate  resort 
*-  to  that  '  rightful  remedy,'  but  a  disinclination  to  use  it  in  any  but  extreme 
cases,  and  a  hope,  however  faint,  that  the  Democrats  will  repeal  it,  when 
they  come  into  power ;  if,  indeed,  this  very  bill  does  not  keep  them  out,  and 
it  will,  undoubtedly,  do  much  towards  that  end.  That  Mr.  Calhoun's  hope, 
even  in  the  event  of  the  Democrats  obtaining  a  majority,  is  not  more  san- 
guine than  ours,  will  be  seen  by  the  desponding  character  of  his  remarks  on 
its  passage." 

V  .'  ;    .,-  •*'    '.  '"*•> 

Fellow  Citizens — On  closing  my  relations  of  personal  communi- 
cation with  you  as  your  Representative  in  Congress,  it  may  be  proper 
for  me  to  advert  to  the  position  which  I  have  occupied  in  that  body, 
and  to  the  principles  which  I  have  observed  in  that  capacity. 

There  are  two  different  party  divisions  always  operating  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States — ohe  sectional,  North 
and  South — or  in  other  words,  slave  and  free;  the  other  political — 
both  sides  of  which  have  been  known  at  different  times  by  different 
names,  but  are  now  usually  denominated  Whigs  and  Democrats. 
The  Southern  or  Slave  party,  outnumbered  by  the  free,  are  cemented 
together  by  a  common,  intense  interest  of  property  to  the  amount  of 
$1,200,000,000  in  human  beings,  the  very  existence  of  which  is 
neither  allowed  nor  tolerated  in  the  North.  It  is  the  opinion  of  man 
theoretical  reasoners  on  the  subject  of  Government,  that  whatev 
may  be  its  form,  the  ruling  power  of  every  nation  is  its  property.  M 
Van  Buren  in  one  of  his  messages  to  Congress,  gravely  pointed  out 
them  the  anti-republican  tendencies  of  associated  wealth.  Reflect  fiow 
upon  the  tendencies  of  twelve  hundred  millions  of  dollars  of  associa- 
ted wealth,  directly  represented  in  your  National  Legislature  by  one 
hundred  members,  together  with  one  hundred  arid  forty  members, 
representing  persons  only — freemen,  but  not  chattels.  Reflect  also 
that  this  twelve  hundred  millions  of  dollars  of  property  is  peculiar  in 
its  character,  and  comes  under  a  classification  once  denominated  by 
a  Governor  of  Virginia  property  acquired  by  crime — That  it  sits  un- 
easy upon  the  consience  of  its  owner — That  in  the  purification  of 
human  virtue  and  the  progress  of  the  Christian  religion,  it  has  be- 
come, and  is  daily  becoming  more  and  more  odious — That  Wash- 
ington and  Jefferson,  themselves  slaveholders,  living  and  dying,  bore 


- 

25  . 

testimony  against  it — That  it  was  the  dying  REMORSE  of  John  Ran* 
dolph — That  it  is  renounced  and  abjured  by  the  supreme  pontiff  of 
the  Roman  Church:  abolished  with  execration  by  the  Mahometan 
despot  of  Tunis;  shaken  to  its  foundations  by  the  imperial  autocrat 
of  all  the  Russias,  and  the  absolute  monarch  of  Austria — all,  all 
bearing  reluctant  and  extorted  testimony  to  the  self-evident  truth, 
that  by  the  laws  of  Nature,  and  of  Nature's-God,  man  cannot  be 
the  property  of  man.  Recollect  that  the  firsftcry  of  human  feeling 
against  this  unhallowed  outrage  upon  humim  rights  came  from  our- 
selves, from  the  Quakers  of  Pennsylvania — That  it  passed  from  us 
to  England — from  England  to  France,  and  spread  over  the  civilized 
world — That  after  struggling  for  nearly  a  century  against  the 
most  sordid  interests  and  most  furious  passions  of  man,  it  made  its 
way  at  length  into  the  Parliament,  and  ascended  the  throne  of  the 
British  Isles.  The  slave  trade  was  made  piracy,  first  by  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States,  and  then  by  the  Parliament  of  Great 
Britain.  But  the-curse  fastened  by  the  progress  of  Christian  char- 
ity, and  of  human  rights,  upon  the  African  slave  trade,  could  not 
rest  there.  If  the  African  slave  trade  was  piracy,  the  coasting  Amer- 
ican slave  trade  could  not  be  innocent — nor  could  its  aggravated 
turpitude  be  denied.  In  the  sight  of  the  same  God  who  abhors  the 
inicjiiity  of  the  African  slave  trade,  neither  the  American  Slave  trade, 
nor  slavery  itself,  can  be  held  guiltless.  From  the  suppression  of 
the  African  slave  trade,  therefore,  the  British  Parliament,  impelled 
by  the  irresistible  influence  of  the  British  People,  proceeded  to  point 
the  battery  of  its  power  against  slavery  itself.  At  the  expense  of  one 
hundred  millions  of  dollars,  it  abolished  slavery,  and  emancipated  all 
the  slaves  in  the  British  transatlantic  colonies,  and  the  Government 
entered  upon  a  system  of  negotiation  with  all  the  powers  of  the 
world,  for  the  ultimate  extinction  of  slavery  throughout  the  globe. 

The  utter  and  Unqualified  inconsistency  of  slavery,  in  any  of  its 
forms,  with  the  principles  of  t^e  NofjRv^rrierican  Revolution  and 
•  the  declaration  of  "our  Independence,  had.  so  forcibly  struck  the 
Southern  champions  of  our  rights,  j;hat  the  abolition  of  slavery  and 
the  emancipation  of  slaves  was  a  darling  project  of  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son, from  his  first  entrance  into  publiq  life,  to  the  last  years  of  his 
existence.  But  the  Associated  wealth,  of  the  slaveholders  outweighed 
the  principles  of  the  Revolution,  and.  by  the  Constitution  of  the  U. 
States  a  compromise  was  established  between  slavery  and  freedom. 
The  extent  of  the  sacrifice  of  principle  made  by  the  North  in  this 
compromise,  can  be  estimated;  only  by  its  practical  effects.  The 
principle  is,  that  the  House  "of  Representatives  of  the  United  States 
is  a  representation  only  of  the  persons  and  freedom  of  the  North, 
and  of  the  persons,  property  and  slavery  of  the  South.-  Its  practi- 
cal operation  has  been  to  fix  the  balance  of  power  in  the  House,  and 
in  every  department  of  the  Government  in  the  bands  of  thfe  minority 
of  numbers.  For  practical  results,  look  to  the  present  composition 
of  your  Government  in  all  its  departments.  The  President  of  the 
United  States — the  President  of  the  Senate — the  Speaker  of  the 
House,  are  all  slaveholders.  -The  Chief  Justice,  and  four  other  out 


26 

of  the  mne  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  are 
slaveholders.  The  Commander-in-Chief  of  your  army,  and  the  Gen- 
eral next  in  command,  are  slaveholders.  A  vast  majority  of  all  the 
officers  of  your  navy,  from  the  ^highest  to  the  lowest,  are  slavehold- 
ers. Of  six  heads  of  the  Executive  Departments,  three  are  slave- 
holders ;  securing  thus,  with  the  President,  a  majority  in  all  Cabinet 
consultations  and  Executive  councils.  From  the  commencement  of 
this  century,  upwards  of  forty  years,  the  office  of  Chief  Justice  has 
been  always  held  by  slaveholders;  and  when  upon  the  death  of  Judge 
Marshall,  the  two  senior  Justices  upon  the  bench  were  citizens  of 
the  free  States,  and  unsurpassed  in  eminence  of  reputation,  both  for 
learning  in  the  law  and  for  spotless  integrity,  they  were  both  over- 
looked and  overslaughed  by  a  slaveholder,  far  inferior  to  either  of 
them  in  reputation  as  a  lawyer,  and  chiefly  eminent  for  his  obsequi- 
ous servility  to  the  usurpations  of  Andrew  Jackson,  for  which  this 
unjust  elevation  to  the  Supreme  Judicial  bench  was  the  reward. 

As  to  the  House  itself,  if  an  Article  of  the  Constitution  had  pre- 
scribed, or  a  standing  rule  of  the  House  had  required,  that  no  other 
than  a  slave-holder  should  ever  be  its  Speaker,  the  regulation  could 
not  be  more  rigorously  observed  than  it  is  by  the  compact  move- 
ments of  the  slave  representation  in  the  House.  Of  the  last  six 
Speakers  of  the  House,  including  the  present,  every  one  has  been  a 
slaveholder.  It  is  so  much  a  matter  of  course  to  see  such  a  person 
in  the  Chair,  that  if  a  Northern  man  but  thinks  of  aspiring  to  i\\e 
Chair,  he  is  only  made  a  laughing-stock  for  the  House.  With  such 
consequences  staring  us  in  the  face,  what  are  we  to  think  when  we 
are- told  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States  is  a  democracy  of 
numbers;  a  Government  by  a  majority  of  the  People?  Do  you  not 
see  that  the  one  hundred  Representatives  of  persons,  property  and 
slavery,  marching  in  solid  phalanx  upon  every  question  of  interest  to 
their  constituents,  will  always  outnumber  the  one  hundred  and  forty 
Representatives  only  of  persons  and  freedom,  scattered,  as  their 
votes  always  will  be,  by  conflicting  interests,  prejudices  and  passions  1 
But  this  is  not  all.  The  second  party  division  in  the  House  to 
which  I  have  alluded  is  political.,  and  known  at  present  by  the  names 
of  Whigs  and  Democrats,  or  Loco  Focos.  The  latter  are  remarka- 
ble for  an  exquisite  tenderness  of  affection  for  the  people,  and  espe- 
cially for  the  poor,  provided  their  skins  are  white,  and  against  the 
rich.  But  it  is  no  less  remarkable  that  the  princely  slaveholders  of 
the  South  are  among  the  most  thoroughgoing  of  the  Democrats ; 
and  their  alliance  with  the  Northern  Democracy  is  one  of  the  cardi- 
nal points  of  their  policy.  Mr.  Jefferson  delivered  it  to  them  as  the 
keystone  to  the  arch  of  Southern  statesmanship,  and  Mr.  Clement 
C.  Clay,  in  impressing  it  upon  the  Legislature  of  Alabama,  gives 
them  an  illustration  of  its  wisdom  in  the  fact,  that  on  the  nomination 
of  Edwaro1  Everett  as  Minister  to  Great  Britain,  all  the  Democratic 
Senators  from  the  North  voted  against  him. 

With  the  aid  of  this  policy,  Thomas  Jefferson,  by  an  open  and 
avowed  violation  of  the  Constitution  which  he  had  sworn  to  support, 
effected,  by  an  act  of  Congress  alone,  the  annexation  of  Louisiana 


27 

to  this  Union  ;  and  by  virtue  of  that  precedent,  Florida  was  after- 
wards annexed  in  like  manner.  This  was  an  enormous  accession  of 
strength  to  the  Southern  or  slaveholding  section — but  it  was  not 
enough.  By  the  dismemberment  of  Mexico,  Texas  and  a  territory 
of  five  hundred  thousand  square  miles,  might  be  annexed  to  the 
Union.  Mexico  had  abolished  slavery,  but  Texas  had  restored  it  and 
made  it  irrevocable.  Ten  States,  with  each  a  population  exceeding 
that  of  Virginia,  might  be  carved  out  of  this  territory,  and  place  on 
immoveable  foundations  the  supremacy  and  perpetuity  of  the. slave- 
holding  power. 

Are  you  incredulous  oFthe  possibility  that  the  free  representation 
of  the  North  should  be  wheedled  into  the  support  of  a  system,  so 
diametrically  opposite  to  the  first  elements  of  true  Democracy,  and 
to  the  clearest  interests  of  their  own  section?  Mr.  Appleton  has  ap- 
prised you  of  the  charm  by  which  New  Hampshire  has  been  con- 
verted into  an -anti-tariff  State ;  and  the  same  spell  which  has  been 
of  potency  sufficient  to  fasten  the  Atherton  gag  upon  the  sacred  right 
of  petition,  will  find  her  equally  ready  to  sacrifice  all  the  inalienable 
rights  of  man  to  the  Moloch  of  slavery,  and  to  fasten,  from  the  plun- 
der of  Mexico,  ten  slave-spotted  States  upon  the  Union,  to  settle  for 
all  time,  and  beyond  the  possibility  of  redemption,  the  preponderancy 
of  Southern  slavery  over  the  democracy  and  the  freedom  of  the  North. 

I  entered  the  national  House  of  Representatives  in  December, 
1831,  with  an  assurance  to  the  constituents  by  whom  I  was  elected, 
that  I  should  hold  myself  bound  in  allegiance  to  no  party,  whether 
sectional  or  political.  I  thought  this  a  duty  imposed  upon  me  .by, 
my  peculiar  position.  I  had  spent  the  greatest  portion  of  my  life 
in  the  service  of  the  whole  nation,  and  had  been  honored  with  their 
highest  trust.  My  duty  of  fidelity,  of  affection,  and  of  gratitude  to 
the  whole,  was  not  merely  inseparable  from,  but  identical  with,  that 
which  was  due  from  me  to  my  own  native  Commonwealth.  The  in- 
ternal conflict  between  slavery  and  freedom,  had  been  and  still  was 
scarcely  perceptible  in  the  national  councils.  The  Missouri  coin- 
promise  had  laid  it  asleep,  it  was  hoped,  forever.  The  develope- 
ment  of  the  moral  principle  which  pronounces  slavery  a  crime-  of 
man  against  his  brother  man,  had  not  yet  reached  the  conscience  of 
all  Christendom.  The  leading  monarchy  of  Europe,  earnestly  arttL 
zealously  occupied  in  rallying  the  physical,  moral  and  intellectual 
energies  of  civilized  man  against  the  African  slave  trade,  had  scarce- 
ly yet  discovered  that  the  African  slave  trade  waS  but  an  instrument, 
and  in  truth  a  mitigation,  of  the  great  irremissible  wrong  of  slavery. 
Her  final  policy,  the  extinction  of  slavery  throughout  the  earth,  was. 
not  yet  disclosed.  The  Jackson  project  of  dismembering  Mexico 
for  the  acquisition  of  Texas,  already  organized  and  in  full  operation, 
was  yet  profoundly  secret.  1  entered  Congress  without  one  senti- 
ment of  discrimination  between  the  interests  of  the  North  and  South, 
and  my  first  act  as  a  member  of  the  House,  was,  on  presenting  fif- 
teen petitions  from  Pennsylvania  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the 
District,  of  Columbia,  to  declare,  while  moving  their  reference  to 
the  Committee  of  the  District,  that  I  was  not  prepared  to  support  the 


28 

measure  myself,  and  should  not  support  it.  I  was,  therefore,  not 
then  a  sectional  partizan,  and  never  have  been  to  this  day. 

In  the  political  division  of  parties,  my  opinions  and  principles 
were  all  in  favor  of  the  Executive  Administration  of  the  National 
Government,  then  formidably  assailed  by  South  Carolina  nullifica- 
tion, under  the  shield  and  with  the  artillery  of  State  sovereignty. 
President  Jackson  had  placed  himself  out  of  the  reach  of  all  friendly 
personal  intercourse  with  me ;  but  through  the  whole  term  of  his 
Administration  I  gave  to  it  my  cordial  support  for  ever)A  measure 
which  I  believed  constitutional,  and  useful  to  the  interest  of  the 
country.  He  had  indeed  pronounced  his  veto  upon  the  Maysville 
Road  Bill,  but  he  had  not  proclaimed  his  war  of  extermination 
against  {he  National  Bank,  nor  against  internal  improvements,  nor 
against  the  protection  of  our  manufactures,  nor  against  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  proceeds  of  the  public  lands.  It  was  not  till  his  message 
of  December,  1832,  that  he  disclosed  the  extent  of  his  most  perni- 
cious political  system,  repudiating  all  the  maxims  of  Washington 
and  his  policy,  the  cardinal  points  of  which  had,  through  all  the 
previous  changes  of  administration,  stood  unshaken  till  that  day.  In 
the  preceding  summer  of  1832,  I  had,  in  perfect  concert  with  his 
Administration — as  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Manufactures, 
carried  through  the  tariff  act  of  that  year,  which,  if  it  had  been  suf- 
fered to  continue  to  this  day,  would  have  provided  all  the  revenue 
necessary  for  the  expenditures  of  the  Government,  without  excess  or 
deficiency,  and  without  a  dollar  of  debt  now  to  be  paid.  In  his 
controversy  with  France,  while  resisting  his  grasp  at  the  war-declar- 
ing power  of  Congress,  I  sustained  him  in  his  peremptory  demand 
for  the  faithful  execution  of  a  ratified  treaty.  In  his  controversy 
with  South  Carolina,  I  voted  to  furnish  him  the  means  of  sustaining 
his  proclamation,  and  suppressing  the  threatened  insurrection  un- 
der the  banners  of  nullification.  But  in  his  furious  and  vindictive 
war  against  the  National  Bank — in  his  usurpation  of  the  control  of 
the  Treasury — in  his  perfidious  course  of  policy  towards  the  Indian 
tribes,  and  Mexico — in  his  pocket  vetoes,  and  judicial  miscon- 
struction of  a  law  approved  and  signed  by  himself — in  his  politi- 
cal proscriptions,  his  Kitchen  Cabinet  consultations,  his  overbear- 
ing and  humiliating  degradation  of  his  official  Cabinet  Ministers, 
and  his  insulting  imputations  upon  the  members  of  Congress,  in- 
cluding his  own  partizans, — I  opposed  him  so  long  as  he  held  the 
reins  of  power — seldom,  indeed,  with  success,  but  at  least  in  avert- 
ing a  war  with  Mexico,  and  defeating  for  the  time  the  transfer  of 
the  balance  of  power  from  the  freedom  to  the  slavery  of  the  Union. 

It  was  during  the  Jackson  Administration  that  the  sectional  divi- 
sion of  parties  became  preponderant,  in  and  out  of  Congress,  by  the 
collision  between  slavery  and  freedom,  which  has  prostrated,  for  the 
time,  and  suspended,  in  defiance  of  the  constitution,  the  sacred 
right  of  petition.  The  existence  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia had  always  been  a  source  of  mortification  and  disgust  to  the 
people  of  the  free  States.  As  the  general  detestation  of  the  African 
slave  trade  was  spreading  over  Europe,  it  came  back  by  reflection 


29 

to  the  Country  where  it  had  originated.  Petitions,  memorials 
and  remonstrances  against  slavery  and  the  slave  trade  in  the  Dis- 
trict, multiplied  not  only  by  the  natural  sympathies  of  humanity, 
but  by  a  numerous  host  of  anti-slavery  societies,  which  started 
up  almost  at  once  throughout  all  the  free  States.  The  great 
convenience  to  the  South  of  the  nullification  doctrine  is,  that  it 
accommodates  itself  to  every  exercise  of  power  by  Congress, 
which  interferes  directly  or  indirectly  with  the  black  code.  When 
the  abolition  petitions  began  to  multiply,  some  forty  bale  theorist 
made  the  discovery  that  Congress,  with  express  power  to  exer- 
cise exclusive  legislation  in  all  cases  whatever  over  the  District, 
liad  yet  no  powrer  to  abolish  slavery  ;  and  having  no  such  power, 
the  people  had  no  right  to  petition  Congress  for  any  thing  which 
Congress  had  no  power  to  grant  ;  and  so  conclusive  was  this  lo- 
gic south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  that  when  Mr.  Van  Bu- 
ren,  as  a  Northern  man  with  Southern  principles,  became  a  can- 
didate for  the  succession  to  the  Presidency,  he  was  specially  cat- 
echised for  his  opinion  upon  this  point,  and  he  answered  the  in- 
quiry by  a  compromise.  He  thought  it  not  quite  safe  to  deny 
the  power  of  Congress,  but  he  held  that  the  exercise  of  the  pow- 
er was  as  much  interdicted  as  if  it  did  not  exist — and  he  faith- 
fully promised  a  veto,  if,  while  he  should  be  President,  majorities 
of  both  Houses  of  Congress  should  pass  an  abolition  act.  On 
the  faith  of  thjs  and  other  acclimated  "pledges,  Mr.  Van  Buren  was 
elected  by  Southern  votes;  and  with  the  auxiliary  force  of  the 
Northern  Democracy,  the  Southern  sectional  policy  became  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land.  The  right  of  petition  was  suppressed 
— internal  improvement  was  arrested — the  manufacturing  interest 
was  outlawed — the  public  lands  were  devoted  to  devastation  and 
waste — and  the  States  stimulated  by  floods  of  spurious  currency 
to  incur  burdensome  debts  for  their  own  improvements,  are  strip- 
ped of  the  funds  from  which  they  had  a  right  to  expect  the  means 
of  making  their  payments,  and  are  driven  to  the  desperate  re- 
source of  repudiation. 

It  is  then  the  sectional  division  of  parties,  or  in  other  words, 
the  conflict  between  freedom  and  slavery,  which  constitutes  the 
axle  round  which  the  administration  of  your  National  Govern- 
ment revolves.  All  its  measures  of  foreign  and  domestic  policy, 
are  but  radiations  from  that  centre.  John  Tyler  is  a  Virginian 
slaveholder.  All  the  affections  of  his  soul  are  bound  up  in  the 
system  of  supporting,  spreading,  and  perpetuating  the  peculiar 
institutions  of  the  South.  The  political  division  of  parties  with 
him,  and  with  all  Southern  statesmen  of  his  stamp,  is  a  mere  in- 
strument of  power,  to  purchase  auxiliary  support  to  the  cause  of 
slavery,  even  from  the  freemen  of  the  North.  Democracy  ! 
Why  upon  what  foundation  can  Democracy  find  a  foothold  to 


30 

stand,  but  upon  the  rights  of  man  ;  upon  the  self-evident  truths 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  ?  Democracy  and  Slavery! 
The  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number — and  the  greatest  num- 
ber the  property  of  the  smallest  !  A  government  of  majorities, 
and  a  majority  the  chattels  of  the  minority  !  Is  not  the  brand  of 
double-dealer  stamped  on  the  forehead  of  every  democratic  slave- 
holder ?  Are  not  fraud  and  hypocrisy  the  religion  of  the  man 
who  calls  himself  a  democrat,  and  holds  his  fellow-man  in  bondage? 

Yet  so  it  is — that  John  Tyler  who  stole  into  the  camp  of  the 
Whigs  in  1840,  in  their  triumphant  struggle  to  put  down  the* 
standard  of  the  Northern  man  with  Southern  principles,  under 
the  colors  of  retrenchment,  reform,  and  Whig  resistance  to 
Executive  usurpations,  has  crept  up  to  the  summit  of  power,  and 
there  proclaims  himself  a  democrat  dyed  in  the  wool — claims  to 
be  an  independent,  co-ordinate  department  of  the  legislative 
power — declares  in  so  many  words  that  Congress  can  enact  no 
law  without  his  sanction,  stigmatizes  the  leading  members  of 
Congress,  of  the  party  by  which  he  was  chosen  as  a  coadjutor  of 
Harrison,  to  achieve  the  great  and  glorious  work  of  reform,  as 
mousing  politicians — sets  all  the  trumpets  of  the  press,  paid  by 
his  dispensation  of  patronage  with  the  public  money,  and  all  the 
hungry  and  unprincipled  office-hunters  throughout  the  Union,  to 
railing  against  Congress,  the  real  legislative  power,  for  failing  to 
restore  the  public  prosperity,  while  he  defeats  by  his  vetoes  al- 
most every  salutary  measure  devised  and  matured  by  them,  and 
believed  by  them  to  be  indispensable  for  the  purpose — turns  out 
of  the  Executive  offices  under  his  control,  honest  and  honorable 
men,  true  republicans  and  ardent  patriots,  like  Jonathan  Roberts, 
and  foists  into  their  places,  sycophants  and  time-servers — levies 
money  upon  the  people,  upon  authority  so  questionable,  that  his 
own  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  believes  it  to  be  without  and 
against  law*;  and  to  crown  the  whole  system  of  misrule,  approves 
and  signs  an  act  of  Congress,  and  deposits  in  the  Department  of 
State,  an  argument  to  nullify  the  most  important,  and  the  most 
wholesome^of  its  provisions. 

Fellow  Citizens,  it  was  this  glaring  act  of  double-dealing,  that 
stamped  the  character  of  the  man  in  my  estimation,  in  letters 
never  to  be  effaced.  That  duplicity  was  his  uneradicable  vice, 
I  had  long  had  reason  to  suspect,  but  was  extremely  reluctant  to 
believe.  Long  before  he  had  been  thought  of  as  a  candidate  for 
the  office  of  Vice  President  of  the  United  States,  I  had  read  a 
letter  from  the  late  Henry  Lee  to  him,  charging  him  with  that 
pollution  of  the  heart  in  other  transactions  of  his  life,  upon  testi- 
mony which  it  was  not  easy  to  withstand.  I  had  witnessed  his 
wavering,  inconsistent,  and  yet  obstinate  conduct  throughout  the 
whole  of  his  proceedings  with  his  first  cabinet,  until  its  dissolu- 


31    , 

tio'n — had  compared  his  self-contradictory  reasons  for  his  first 
and  second  bank  vetoes,  and  had  noticed  the  direct  issues  upon 
his  veracity,  made  by  the  seceding  members  of  the  Harrison 
cabinet.  I  knew  not  all  indeed  of  the  mass  of  irrefragable  evi- 
dence on  that  point,  which  has  since  been  disclosed,  b&t  it  was 
already  exposed  in  such  burning  light,  that  I. could  barely  keep 
with  him  upon  terms  of  such  personal  civility,  as  may  be  observ- 
ed with  political  adversaries,  whose  personal  integrity  is  unirn- 
peached.  The  approval  of  the  apportionment  bill,  with  the 
caveat  deposited  in  the  Department  of  State  against  far  the  most 
important  section  contained  in  it,  was,  in  my  opinion  a  fraud, 
which  no  man  of  moral  honesty  could  have  committed  ;  which 
no  sophistry  could  disguise,  and  no  ingenuity  could  palliate.  I 
could  have  no  further  voluntary  friendly  personal  intercourse  with 
its  author,  and  I  deemed  it  my  indispensable  duty  to  expose  its 
true  character  to  the  House  and  to  the  country. 

I  moved  a  resolution  of  the  House,  calling  on  the  Department 
of  State  for  the  paper  itself ;  Mr.  Tyler  having  merely  informed 
the  House  that  he  had  deposited  there  his  reasons  for  signing  the 
bill,  without  stating  what  they  were.  The  House,  invariably 
treating  him  with  deference,  amended  my  resolution  by  calling 
for  a  copy  instead  of  the  original  ;  when  the  paper  came,  I 
moved  its  referenpe  to  a  Select  Committee,  which  reported  a 
strong  reprobation  of  Mr.  Tyler's  proceeding  in  the  case,  and  a 
resolution  protesting  against  it  as  a  precedent.  This  report  of 
the  Committee  could  be  called  up  for  consideration  only  by  a 
majority  of  two  thirds  of  the  members  present,  and  voting.  I 
moved  several  times  that  it  should  be  taken  up,  and  carried  a 
majority  vote,  but  not  of  two  thirds.  Mr.  Tyler  was  spared  the 
mortification  of  a  vote  of  the  House,  adopting  the  report  and 
the  protest,  because  his  friends  in  the  House  objected  to  its  be- 
ing considered,  and  the  objection  could  only  be  overcome  by 
the  vote  of  two  thirds. 

The  reasons  for  approving  the  bill  were  an  argument  against' 
the  section  requiring  that  the  elections  for  members  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  should  be  by  single  districts  throughout  the 
Union.  The  effect  and  intent  of  the  reasons  were  to  stimulate 
and  encourage  resistance  by  nullification  against  the  single  dis- 
tricts. The  single  district  is  the  only  way  by  the  Constitution 
of  effecting  the  provision,  requiring  one  representative  for  every 
number  of  the  common  standard.  The  meeting  of  the  next  Con- 
gress will  disclose  the  full  extent  of  the  evil  of  this  most  mis- 
chievous Executive  usurpation. 

The  character  of  this  transaction,  symptomatic  of  a  perfidious 
heart,  can  only  be  estimated  by  analyzing  its  motives  and  pur- 
poses. The  Legislatures  of  seven  of  the  smaller  States  of  the 


32 

\ 

Union,  to  secure  to  themselves  an  undue  proportion  of  influence 
in  the  popular  branch  of  the  National  Legislature,  had  adopted 
the  practice  of  electing  the  whole  number  of  members  of  the 
House  to  which  their  numeric  population  entitled  them,  by  gene- 
ral ticket,  whereby  each  member  was  made  a  Representative  of 
the  whole  State,  and  not  of  the  specific  number  of  persons  enti- 
tled by  the  Constitution  to  one  member.  ICwas  in  truth  a  mode 
of  election  iniquitous  and  unjust  to  all  the  other  States  represent- 
ed'by  single  districts,  and  equally  unjust  to  the  minority  of  the 
people  in  the  States  so  represented  themselves.  It  often  hap- 
pens that  the  minority  of  the  people  of  a  whole  State,  consists 
of  the  majority  in  several  of  its  districts.  This  had  been  strongly 
exemplified  very  recently  in  the  State  of  Alabama.  In  the  26th 
Congress,  three  out  of  five  members  from  that  State,  chosen  by 
single  districts,  were  Whigs.  The  Legislature  of  the  State,  for 
the  express  purpose  of  preventing  their  re-election,  enacted  a 
law  prescribing  the  election  by  general  ticket,  and  the  whole  five 
members  from  Alabama  in  the  27th  Congress  are  Loco  Focos  ; 
slaveholding  Democrats.  The  result  is,  not  merely  that  near 
one  half  of  the  people  of  the  State  are  unrepresented,  but  that 
they  are  misrepresented  by  persons  of  opinions  and  principles 
directly  opposite  to  their  own.  This  is  equally  contrary  to  the 
principles  of  popular  election,  and  to  the  letter  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. There  is  another  point  of  view  in  which  its  incompatibility 
with  the  principles  of  popular  representation  is  obvious.  By  the 
single  district  system,  every  voter  has  one  representative  and.  no 
more.  By  the  single  district  system,  every  voter  has  as  many 
representatives  as  his  State  is  entitled  to  send  to  the  House — and 
if  that  system  should  be  generally  adopted,  every  voter  in  the 
State  of  New  York  will  have  his  thirty-four  representatives, 
while  the  voters  in  Rhode  Island  will  have  only  two,  and  in  Del- 
aware only  one.  The  single  district  section  was  introduced  into 
the  apportionment  bill,  by  a  democratic  member  from  the  State 
of  South  Carolina.  It  was  neither  a  Whig,  nor  a  sectionally 
Northern  measure — but  the  slave  representation,  and  the  North- 
ern democracy,  soon  began  to  look  at  it  with  an  evil  eye.  Null- 
ification took  the  alarm,  because  it  was  mandatory  to  the  State 
Legislatures,  and  nullification  is  at  the  root  of  Mr.  Tyler's  whole 
political  system.  While  the  bill  was  on  its  passage  through  Con- 
gress, the  Legislatures  of  New  Hampshire  and  Georgia,  two  of 
the  States  abusively  represented  by  general  ticket,  had  hoisted 
the  black  flag  of  nullification  against  the  single  district  section. 
They  strutted  abroad  in  the  flaunting  colors  of  State  sovereignty, 
and  proclaimed  defiance  to  the  mandatory  act  of  Congress.  New 
Hampshire  and  Georgia  were  both  Loco  Foco  States  ;  but  Mr. 
Tyler  had  become  marvelously  quiescent  to  their  opinions  and 


fflolicyyand  so,  to  propitiate  them,  with  the  same  hand  approved 
•and  signed  the  bill,  and  sent  to  be  deposited  in  the  Department 
'of  State,  this  incendiary  torch  of  Constitutional  doubts,  to  cheer 
•up  and  stimulate  the  rebellion  of  State  sovereignty,  against  the 
'truly  popular  and  democratic  principle  of  single. district  represen- 
tation. 

The  two  Houses  of  Congress,  perceiving  the  direct  tendency 
of  this  instigation,  'by  the  Chief  Magistrate  himself,  to  insurrec- 
'tion  against  a  iaw  approved  and  signed  by  himself,  to  produce  a 
conflict  more  dangerous  to  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  Union 
'than  that  of  the  New  Jersey  election  in  the  26th  Congress,  made 
a  last  effort  to  avert  so  deplorable  a  calamity.  They  introduced 
into  an  act  regulating  the  taking  of  testimony  in  cases  of  contest- 
ed elections,  a  section  providing  that  no  person  presenting  him- 
self as  a  member  elect  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  should 
l)e  admitted  to  a  seat,  without  a  certificate  of  his  election  con- 
formably to  the  law  prescribing  election  by  single  district.  This 
act  for  the  regulating  the  taking  of  testimony,  &c.  was  one  of  the 
most  arduous  labors  of  the  session.  It  had  been  prepared  with 
the  most  anxious  assiduity,  by  an  able  and  diligent  Committee) 
had  been  debated  in  a  conciliatory  temper,  and  with  mature  de- 
liberation, in  both  Houses — and  was  sent  to  Mr.  Tyler  on  the 
last  day  of  the  session.  He  neither  approved  and  signed  it,  nor 
sent  it  back  with  his  objections  ;'  but,  following  an  example  of 
fiis  illustrious  predecessor,  in  one  of  his  most  arbitrary  acts,  he 
put  it  in  his  pocket.  New  Hampshire  and  Georgia  may  carry 
into  unresisted  execution  their  threats  of  insurrection  against  the 
law.  The  fortitude  of  the  28th  Congress  will  be  called  to  meet 
the  shock,  and  the  Chief  Magistrate,  sworn  to  support  the  Conn 

stitution  and  the  laws,  will  be  there  to  head  the  rebellion  against 
i  ** 

them* 

The  first,  most  embittered,  and  most  violent  assault  upon  the 
administration  of  Mr.  Tyler,  was  commenced  at  the  meeting  of 
Congress  at  the  special  session.  It  was  aimed  specifically  at  the 
Secretary  of  State,  and  its  object  was  to  drive  him  from  his 
place,  and  from  the  councils  of  the  President,  The  close  of 
Mr.  Van  Buren's  administration  had  been  marked  by  a  rancor- 
ous and  insulting  tone  assumed  in  negotiation  with  Great  Britain 
a  mixture  of  the  bully  and  the  coward,  which  had  made  us  the 
laughing  stock  of  the  world.  Mr.  Webster  had  entered  the 
JJ apartment  oi  fetate,  and  the  tone  and  temper  of  negotiation 
was  instantly  changed.  Instead  of  sharp  and  senseless  reproach 
and  contumely,  candid  and  friendly  discussion  were  substituted— 
the  soft  answer  turned  away  wrath,  and  the  conciliatory  spirit  in- 
fused  itself  into  the  diplomacy  of  both  parties,  It  operated  like 
a  charm,  but  it  roused  to  a  pitch  of  frenzy  the  opposition  of  the 


34 

defeated  democracy  of  the  Five  Points — and  in  .resolution  upon 
resolution,  and  speech  upon  speech,  in  both  Houses  of  Congress, 
the  Secretary  of  State  was  charged  with  having  sacrificed- irre- 
deemably the  interests  and  independence  of  the  country,  before 
the  fangs  of  the  British  lion.  This  internal  war  was  kept  up 
through  the  whole  session,  even  after  Captain  Tyler's  vetoes  of 
the  first  and  second  bank  bills  had  smoothed  the  raven  down  of 
Loco  Foco  Democracy  till  it  smiled.  Just  before  the  close  of 
the  session,  the  virulence  of  this  onset  upon  the  Secretary  of 
of  State  was  at  its  height.  I  had  believed  his  colleagues  fully 
justified  in  the  resignation  of  their  offices — but  I  had  advised  him 
to  retain  his  place  till  the  imminent  danger  of  a  war  with  Eng- 
land should  be  dispelled  ;  and  by  a  speech  in  the  House,  on  the 
case  of  M'Leod,  I  expressed  my  concurrence  in  the  spirit  of 
his  correspondence  upon  that  thorny  subject,  and  contributed  by 
my  open  and  avowed  approbation,  what  aid  I  could  to  shame  his 
adversaries  into  silence. 

But  I  did  not  conceal  from  him  that  I  could  not  extend  my 
approbation  to  Mr.  Tyler's  administration — my  confidence  was 
in  Mr.  Webster  in  negotiation  with  Great  Britain,  and  that  con- 
fidence reposed  not  less  upon  the  temper  with  which  I  knew  he 
was  conducting  it,  than  upon  his  talents.  I  could  have  no  confi- 
dence in  Mr.  Tyler.  At  the  very  threshhold  of  the  session,  in 
the  convulsive  struggle  of  the  South  to  restore  the  gag-rule 
against  the  right  of  petition,  his  name  and  official  influence  had 
been  used  with  fatal  success  in  the  debates  of  the  House,  to  re- 
verse the  thrice  repeated  vote  of  the  majority  to  suppress  the 
rule.  Mr.  Tyler  had  suffered  his  name  and  influence  to  be  thus 
publicly  used,  without  disclaiming  his  participation  in  this  gross 
outrage  upon  the  independence  of  the  Representatives  of  the 
people.  The  southern  Whig,  first  mover  of  that  rule,  declared 
in  the  House,  that  he  had  a  letter  from  Mr.  Tyler  expressing  his 
approbation  of  it,  and  complimenting  him  upon,  the  part  he  had 
performed  in  procuring  its  adoption.  And  the  corporal  of  Mr. 
Tyler's  guard  declared  that  he  knew  that  the  President  of  the 
United  States  was  in  favor  of  the  rule.  I  had  been  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Select  Committee  which  had  reported  the  second 
of  the  vetoed  bank  bills — and  had  witnessed,  through  all  its  ter- 
giversations, the  conduct  of  Mr.  Tyler  in  the  progress  and  final 
catastrophe -both  of  that  and  of  its  predecessor,  the  Senate  Bill. 
A  thorough  conviction  that  slavery  and  nullification  were  the  cor- 
ner stone  of  Mr.  Tyler's  politics,  and  duplicity  of  his  morals, 
forced  itself  upon  my  observation,  and  I  was  ready  to  say,  like 
Shakspeare's  Hamlet — 

"  It  is  not,  nor  it  cannot  come  to  good ; 

But  break  my  heart ;  for  I  must  hold  my  tongue 


35 

At  the  meeting  of  the  second  session  of  this  Congress  last  De- 
cember, I  perceived  in  Mr.  Tyler's  annual  messageT  compared 
with  the  reports  of  the  heads  of  departments,  which  he  made 
part  of  it  by  his  urgent  recommendations,  ample  reasons  for  the 
most  decided  disapprobation  of  his  whole  system  of  policy  and 
for  the  most  determined  opposition  to  it.  The  old  and  hackney- 
ed general  professions  of  economy  and  frugality,  and  retrench- 
ment of  the  public  expenditures,  were  there  in  profusion,  while 
on  the  first  page  of  the  annual  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  on  the  finances,  were  presented  estimates  exceeding 
twenty-four  millions  of  dollars,  for  three  items  of  expenditure 
for  the  present  year — twelve  millions  for  the  War  Department — 
eight  for  the  Navy — and  nearly  five  for  the  Civil  and  Diplomatic 
Department.  Was  this  all  ?  far  from  it. 

In  the  report  of  the  Major  General  and  Commander-in-Chief 
of  the  Army  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  it,  was  stated,  as  "  confi- 
dently believed,  that  sixteen  regiments  was  the  minimum  regular 
force,  now  absolutely  required  by  the  country — not  for  actual 
war,  but  as  a  standing  guard  against  outbreaks  on  the  part  of  In- 
dians and  hostilities  from  abroad."  There  were  but  fourteen 
regiments  in  the  service.  Additions  of  one  regiment  of  artillery, 
and  one  of  infantry,  were  respectfully  suggested — and  were 
warmly  recommended,  as  a  very  moderate  increase  of  the  army, 
by  the  Secretary.  And  the  same  War  Minister  deemed  it  in- 
dispensable^ that  a  chain  of  posts  should  be  established,  extend- 
ing from  the  Council  Bluffs  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river, 
on  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  which  the  President  recom- 
mended particularly  to  the  consideration  of  Congress,  and  thought 
of  such  importance  that  it  should  be  carried  into  effect  with  as 
little  delay  as  might  be  practicable.  There  was  not  a  report 
from  a  subordinate  division  of  the  War  Department — from  the 
Ordnance — from  the  Quarter-Master — from  the  chief  military 
Engineer — from  the  military  Academy — from  the  topographical 
Bureau — the  Indian  Department,  with  numberless  sub-reports 
— the  establishment  of  a  corps  of  Sappers  and  Miners — of  a  Na- 
tional Foundry — of  a  depot  for  gunpowder — but  respectfully  sug- 
gested very  moderate  increase  of  expenditure,  the  aggregate  of 
which  could  not  have  fallen  short  of  three  millions  of  dollars. 

The  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  was  still  more  mag- 
nificent of  expenditure.  It  proposed  an  entire  reorganization  of 
the  Department  ;  an  amount  of  estimates  for  the  year  *c  much 
larger,"  in  the  Secretary's  own  words,  "  than  they  had  been  here- 
tofore ;"  that  a  hierarchy  of  the  rank  of  Admirals  should  give 
amplitude  to  the  dignity  of  our  naval  commanders  :  that  the  num- 
bers of  the  marine  corps  should  be  multiplied  at  least  threefold  ; 
that  the  strength  of  our  Navy  should  be  increased  to  equal  at 


tfJN 


' 


SB 

least  one  half  that  of  the  greatest  naval  power  in  the  world  ;•  that 
it  was  highly  desirable  that  the  Gulf  of  California  should  be  fully- 
explored.  The  propriety  of  establishing  a  post,  to  which  our 
vessels  might  resort,  bordering  on  the  Pacific  Ocean,  was  re- 
spectfully suggested — and  in  addition  to  this  a  naval  depot  at  the 
Sandwich  Isiands,  would  be  of  very  great  advantage.  As  to  the 
state  of  the  Treasury,  it  would  ever  be  an  object  of  great  solici- 
tude with  the  Secretary  to  practise  a  prudent  economy  in  all 
things.  But  believing  it  to  be  an  object  of  the  first  importance 
u  to  place  our  navy  upon  the  most  efficient  establishment,  I  have 
not,"  says  the  report,  "  expected  to  effect  that  object  at  any 
small  cost."  u  An  efficient  navy  cannot  be  built  and  supported 
without  vecy  great  expense  ;  but  this  expense  is  more  than  re- 
paid, even  in  time  of  peace,  by  the  services  which  such  a  navy 
can  render." 

The  estimate  for  the  navy  expenses  of  the  year  1842,  accom- 
panying this  report,  was  eight  millions  two  hundred  and  thirteen  4 
thousand  two  hundred  and  eighty-seven  dollars  and  twenty-three 
cents — exceeding  by  two  millions  four  hundred  and  seventy-sev- 
en thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirty-six  dollars  and  sixty-four 
cents,  the  appropriations  of  the  preceding  year. 

In  the  same  report  which  proposed  the  increase  of  the  Navy, 
to  equal  one  half  of  that  of  Great  Britain,  it  was  stated  that  Eng- 
land had  "  more  than  eight  times  as  many  vessels  of  war  as  the' 
United  States,  exclusive  of  her  steam  ships."  To  equal  one 
half  of  her  naval  force  then,  the  United  States  must  build  three 
times  the  whole  number  of  their  present  vessels  of  war,  besides 
at  least  forty  steamers,  tvhich,  at  an  expense  proportioned  to  the 
estimates  of  the  present  year,  would  amount  to  upwards  of  twenty- 
four  millions  of  dollars  a  year  addititional  to  it.  Thirty  millions 
of  dollars  a  year  would  thus  not  suffice  to  cover  the  expense  to 
the  people  of  the  Navy,  thus  seriously  proposed  and  zealously 
urged  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  with  the  approving  smile  of 
President  Tyler. 

With  such  professions  of  rigorous  retrenchment  and  economy 
upon  paper,  and  such  samples  of  the  practical  application  of  them 
in  the  annual  message  and  its  attendant  Executive  Reports,  what 
could  I  forebode  of  the  prudence,  discretion,  or  political  econo- 
my of  Mr.  Tyler's  administration  ?  What  worse  than  senseless 
babbling  must  it  be  to  any  man  capable  of  combining  together 
two  rational  ideas,  with  a  disgraced  and  insolvent  Treasury,  to- 
use  the  words  retrenchment  and  economy,  in  the  very  act  of  pre- 
senting and  recommending  from  the  two  military  Departments  of 
the  Government,  the  duo  fulmina  belli,  an  elaborate,  declama- 
tory system  of  administration,  involving  a  yearly  expenditure,  in 
PEACE,  of  at  least  fifty  millions  of  dollars  ? 


37 

And  this  was  called  a  Peace  Establishment !  But  could  it  es- 
cape the  observation  of  any  reasonable  man  that  it  was  a  cry  of 
peace  !  peace  !  where  there  was  no  peace.  And  it  was  perfectly 
obvious  that  the  temper,  disposition  and  disguised  policy  of  Mr. 
Tyler  was  warlike — war — even  with  England,  not  for-  the 
Boundary,  not  for  the  Caroline — but  for  the  Creole — for  the 
protection  of  the  coasting  slave  trade — but  especially  war  with 
Mexico,  for  the  conquest  and  annexation  to  the  United  States' 
of  Texas  ;  and  for  the  spunging  of  the  public  debt. 

The  paragraph  in  the  annual  Message  relating  to  Texas  was 
itself  sufficiently  marked  by  a  longing  for  the  annexation  of  that 
Republic  to  this  Union.  It  said,  u  the  United  States  cannot 
but  take  a  deep  interest  in  whatever  relates  to  this  young  but 
growing  Republic.  Settled  principally  by  emigrants  from  the 
United  States,  we  have  the  happiness  to  know  that  the  great 
principles  of  civil  liberty  are  there  destined  to  flourish  under  wise 
institutions  and  wholesome  laws  ;  and  that  through  its  example, 
another  evidence  is  to  be  afforded  of  the  capacity  of  popular  in- 
stitutions to  advance  the  prosperity,  happiness  and  permanent 
glory  of  the  human  race.  The  great  truth  that  Government  was 
made  for  the  people,  and  not  the  people  for  Government,  has 
already  been  established  in  the  practice  and  by  the  example  of 
these  United  States  ;  and  we  can  do  no  other  than  contemplate 
its  further  exemplification  by  a  sister  Republic,  with  the  deepest 
interest." 

Do  you  think,  fellow  citizens,  that  you  are  hearing  Benjamin 
Franklin,  or  John  Jay,  or  some  other  honest  champion  and  apos- 
tle of  the  rights  of  man  ?  or  is  this  flourish  a  cruel  mockery  of 
language  and  of  truth  ?  One  of  the  wise  institutions  Gf  this  glo- 
rious republic,  rooted  in  her  social  compact,  is  slavery — heredi- 
tary, irredeemable  slavery — placed  by  her  Constitution  beyond 
the  reach  of  her  Legislature.  This  is  her  tribute  to  the  great 
principles  of  civil  liberty — and  I  will  do  her  again  the  justice  to 
say  that  she  is  no  hypocrite.  Her  constitution  virtually  disclaims 
all  pretension  to  the  great  principles  of  civil  liberty.  It  traves- 
ties the  self-evident  truth  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
that  all  men  are  created  equal,  and  endowed  by  their  Creator 
with  certain  inalienable  rights,  into  a  mere  declaration  that  all 
men,  "  when  they  form  a  social  compact,  have  equal  rights." 
The  Constitution  of  Texas,  has  a  blush  of  decorum,  if  not  of 
shame. 

Yet  deeply  as  Mr.  Tyler  had  fallen  in  love  with  the  glorious 
Republic  of  Texas,  he  said  nothing  of  the  trading  expedition  of 
certain  citizens  of  the  United  States  against  Santa  Fe,  under  the 
colors  of  Texas  and  the  commission  of  President  Lamar.  This 
had  been  organized,  armed,  equipped  and  arrayed,  by  recruits 


38 

/ 

from  the  United  States,  openly  enlisted  in  New  Orleans,  and 
other  parts  of  the  Southern  States,  under  the  eye  of  Mr.  Tyler's 
administration.  In  anticipation  of  its  success,  resolutions  were 
in  preparation  from  the  Legislatures  of  several  of  the  slavehold- 
ing  States,  renewing  the  old  and  rejected  demand  for  the  annex- 
ation of  Texas  to  the  United  States  ;  and  the  then  confidential 
Herald  of  Mr.  Tyler  at  New  York  had  already,  before  the  fail- 
ure of  the  expedition  was  known,  obscurely  intimated  that  the 
measure  was  to  be  consummated  at  the  then  ensuing  session 
of  Congress.  The  tone  of  diplomacy,  and  speeches  in  Con- 
gress towards  Mexico,  became  harsh,  overbearing  and  insulting. 
Mr.  Waddy  Thompson,  during  his  whole  career  in  Congress, 
the  most  inveterate  enemy  of  Mexico,  and  the  most  zealous  and 
intriguing  leader  of  the  gag-rule  party  against  the  right  of  petition, 
and  for  the  annexation  of  Texas  to  the  Union,  was  substituted 
for  Mr.  Powhatan  Ellis,  as  Envoy  Extraordinary  and  Minister 
Plenipotentiary  to  Mexico.  The  expedition  against  Santa  Fe 
made  a  losing  trade,  and  miserably  failed.  Tfie  pedlar  heroes 
of  President  Lamar,  no  sooner  became  Mexican  prisoners  of 
war,  than  they  were  re-metamorphosed  into  citizens  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,  and  the  cry  of  war!  war!  with  miscreant  Mexico,  for 
the  redemption  of  American  citizens  from  the  clutches  of  the 
monster  Santa  Anna,  rung  from  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the  Sa- 
bine.  For  a  full  week,  the  daily  report  whispered  around  the 
House  of  Representatives,  was,  that  a  war  message  against  Mex- 
ico was  coming  in  from  President  Tyler ;  and  when  the  debate 
on  the  appropriation  for  the  new  Minister  to  Mexico  came  up, 
the  corporal  of  the  guard  openly  urged  a  war,  if  Santa  Anna 
should  refuse  to  release  the  trading  invaders  from  the  United 
States,  his  prisoners  of  war,  or  even  if  he  should  pursue  his  de- 
clared purpose  of  attempting  to  recover  by  force  the  revolted 
territory  of  Texas  to  the  Mexican  confederation.  You  will  re- 
member the  eloquent  argument  of  the  corporal  in  the  same 
speech,  to  convince  the  Northern  abolitionists  that  the  annexa-r 
tion  of  Texas  was  much  for  the  Northern  interest,  because  it 
would  weaken,  by  scattering  the  slave  domination,  and  promote 
the  exportation  of  the  staple  article  of  Virginia  domestic  manu- 
facture— and  you  doubtless  know  that  such  was  the  devotion  of 
the  corporal  to  his  captain,  u  Tyler  too,"  that  he  was  generally 
believed  in  the-  House  to  occupy  the  thinking  department  of  the 
captain's  administration. 

The  encroachments  of  Mr.  Tyler  upon  the  legislative  powers 
vested  by  the  Constitution  exclusively  in  Congress,  were  not 
confined  to  the  perpetual  exercise  of  the  veto.  He  repeatedly 
refused  to  communicate  public  documents  called  for  by  resolu- 
tions of  both  Houses,  and  considered  by  them  essential  to  the 


39 

faithful  performance  of  their  legislative  functions.  These  refusals 
were  exasperating,  because,  in  every  instance,  their  tendency 
was  to  shelter  frauds  from  detection,  and  to  screen  public  official 
delinquents  from  exposure  and  punishment. 

In  his  double  movement  on  the  Apportionment  Bill,  after  a 
squinting  distinction  between  the  duties  of  a  member  of  Congress 
and  those  of  a  President  of  the  United  States,  to  sacrifice  his ' 
own  constitutional  scruples  to  the  judgments  of  others,  Mr.  Ty- 
ler professes  to  have  given  his  sanction  to  the  bill  in  profound 
deference,  to  the  wishes  of  the  majority  in  Congress,  and  to 
manifest  his  respect  for  them  by  overcoming  his  own  grave  con- 
stitutional doubts,  in  approving  and  signing  the  bill.  Precisely 
at  the  same  time  he  was  writing  private  letters  for  publication, 
vilifying  the  leading  members  of  Congress  as  mousing  politicians, 
and  with  one  breath  disclaiming  indignantly  the  charge  against 
him  of  dictating  to  Congress,  because  he  was  'ready  to  harmonize 
with  them  in  evert  thing  in  which  they  will  adopt  his  measures, 
and  boasting  that  Congress  can  enact  no  law  without  him. 

This  unblushing  claim  to  legislative  power  might  have  been 
overlooked  as  a  senseless  gasconade,  but  for  actions  correspond- 
ing with  it,  and  for  the  bold  and  broad  assertion  of  it  as  a  princi- 
ple by  his  devoted  partisans  in  Congress.  It  was  distinctly 
averred  by  one  of  them  in  the  House,  that  his  veto  powers  were 
exercised  in  his  legislative  capacity  ;  and  that  he  was,  with  the 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  a  co-ordinate  branch  of 
the  Legislature.  The  use  of  these  expressions  has  since  been 
repeatedly  denied,  but  the  denial  has  always  been  coupled  with  a 
re-assertion  of  the  same  principle  :  an  expedient  perfectly  conge- 
nial to  the  ccTyler-too"  practice. 

It  was  the  all  but  universal  opinion  of  the  lawyers  of  all  par- 
ties, that  after  the  30th  of  June,  the  day  when  the  Compromise 
of  1833  was  to  expire,  there  would  be,  without  further  legislation 
by  Congress,  no  lawful  authority  for  the  collection  of  duties  by 
impost,  whatever — and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  himself, 
in  his  annual  report  on  the  finances,  had  said,  "  it  may  well  be 
questioned  whether  any  'ad  valorem  duties  can  be  collected  after 
the  30th  of  June."  As  the  period  approached  when  it  was  ap- 
parent that  the  general  Tariff  Bill  could  not  be  passed  within 
that  time,  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  reported  a  short 
bill,  to  extend  for  the  limited  period  of  one  month,  to  the  1st  of 
August,  the  existing  laws  for  laying  and  collecting  impost  duties; 
and  to  appease  Mr.  Tyler's  antipathy  to  the  distribution  of  the 
proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands  among  the  States,  the 
first  payment  on  that  account,  due  by  law  on  the  first  of  July, 
was  also  to  be  suspended  until  the  same  first  of  August.  This 
bill  was,  on  the  29th  of  June,  sent  back  to  the  House  with  a 


40 

,  in  which  he  said,  "  the  existing  laws,  as  f  am  advised ,  ar'd 
sufficient  to  authorize  and  enable  the  collecting  officers,  under 
the  direction  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  to  levy  the  duties 
imposed  by  the  Act  of  1833." 

Can  you  believe  that  the  main  reason  assigned  for  this  veto 
was,  that  the  bill  suspended,  or  in  other  words,  abrogated  the, 
provision  of  the  Act  of  1833,  commonly  called  the  "Compromise 
Act?"  The  provision!  What  provision?  no  one  could  tell. 
The  operation  of  the  Compromise  Act,  on  the  30th  of  'June, 
was  consummated.  No  man  of  any  party,  not  Mr.  Tyler  him* 
self,  dreamt  of  continuing  any  longer  the  provisions  of  the  Com- 
promise Act.  The  last  beatification  of  the  Compromise  was  a 
horizontal  duty  of  20  per  cent,  ad  valorem  upon  all  unprivileged 
articles,  with  home  valuation  aud  cash  duties.  Mr.  Tyler  him- 
self was  obliged  to  give  up  the  horizonal  duties,  and  to  admit 
discrimination  for  incidental  protection  to  our  domestic  industry. 
Even  he  was  for  extending  mercy  to  the  manufacturers.  What 
then  was  there  left  of  the  Compromise  to  contend  about  ? 
Nothing — absolutely  nothing — and  yet  Mr.  Tyler  puffed  it  off  in 
solemn  panegyric,  declaring  he  had  always  regarded  it  as  impos- 
ing the  highest  moral  obligation  ;  as  if  a  halo  of  sanctity  surround- 
ed it,  transcending  the  obligation  of  any  other  law,  enacted  by 
the  same  authority.  The  Constitution  warrants  no  such  distinc- 
tion ;  and  the  mildest  judgment  that  can  be  passed  on  this  pre- 
tension of  Mr.  Tyler  is,  that  he  is  under  a  total  misconception  of 
his  official  duties  as  President  of  the  United  States.  He  well 
knows  that  the  compromise  was  a  bargain  or  coalition  of  two 
sections  of  this  Union  against  a  third  ;  and  if  he,  as  a  citizen  and 
Senator  of  one  of  the  two  combining  parties,  was  accessory  to  itj 
when  he  became  the  President  of  the  whole,  he  was  bound  by 
his  oath,  and  ought  to  have  been  by  his  conscience,  to  .consider 
the  highest  of  his  moral  obligations  as  embracing  the  rights  and 
interests  of  the  whole,  and  not  as  contracted  within  the  limits  of 
the  two  compromising  sections. 

In  the  panegyric  upon  the  Compromise  this  veto  says  that 
"this  salutary  law  has  existed  nine  years',  with  as  general  acqui- 
escence, it  is  believed,  of  the  whole  country,  as  that  country  has 
ever  manifested  for  any  of  her  wisely  established  institutions." 
It  is  believed  ? — believed  by  whom  ?  In  its  origin,  all  New 
England,  the  whole  manufacturing  interest  of  the  North,  protest- 
ed against  it.  Not  one  member  from  Massachusetts,  in  either 
House,  voted  for  it.  The  present  Secretary  of  State,  in  the 
Senate,  the  present  Governor  of  the  Commonwealth,  in  the 
House,  opposed  its  passage  with  all  the  force  of  their  powerful 
minds.  Tristam  Burges,  one  of  the  most  eloquent  sons  of  New 
England,  left  on  record  a  remonstrance  against  it,  which  will  be 


41 

remembered  when  John  Tyler  will  be  immortalized  by  nothing 
but  his  vetoes.  It  has,  for  nine  years,  been  generally  acquiesced 
in  ?  Yes. — No  standard  of  rebellion  has  been  raised  against  it, 
from  New  England.  Her  free  laborers,  manufacturers,  and  me- 
chanics, outraged  in  their  rights,  and  insolently  and  openly  cast 
out  of  the  pale  of  the  PROTECTION  of  their  country,  have  sub- 
mitted to  the  authority  of  Congress.  But  submission  is  not  ac- 
quiescence. And  what  has  been  its  operation  over  the  whole 
Union  ?  The  veto  says,  it  provides  "  that  duties  shall  be  laid 
for  the  purpose  of  raising  such  revenue  as  may  be  necessary  to 
an  economical  administration  of  the  government."  It  provides  ? 
There  is  a  mistake  of  the  word.  It  asserts  this  veriest  truism  of 
political  common-place  ;  but  it  provides  no  such  thing.  It  pro- 
vides that  the  duties  levied  under  the  tariff  of  1832,  then  barely 
sufficient  to  defray  the  then  actual  expenditures  of  the  Jack- 
son Administration,  as  profuse  in  professions  of  economy  as  Mr. 
Tyler  himself,  should  be,  in  the  very  year  of  the  compromise, 
and  biennially  thereafter,  till  December,  1841,  and  again  on  the 
30th  of  June,  1842,  gradually  reduced  to  a  dead  level  of  20  per 
cent,  ad  valorem,  never  after  to  be  exceeded — with  home  valua- 
tion and  cash  payments.  That  is  what  it  provides ,  and  without 
the  slightest  reference  to  the  amount  which  might  be  neces- 
sary to  an  economical  administration  of  the  Government,  or  so 
much  as  an  inquiry  what  would  be  necessary  for  the  Adminis- 
trations of  Andrew  Jackson,  and  his  successor.  And  what  was 
the  consequence  ?  From  the  day  when  the  Compromise  Act 
was  signed  until  the  day  of  its  consummation,  30th  June,  1842, 
a  continually  increasing  deficit  in  the  Treasury  has  absorbed  not 
less  than  twenty  millions  of  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  pub- 
lic lands,  eight  millions  of  stock  in  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  six  millions  of  trust  funds,  and  saddled  the  nation  with  a 
debt  of  at  least  twenty-five  millions — an  average  deficit  of  at 
least  six  millions  of  dollars  a  year. 

The  principle  of  this  "  salutary  law,"  was  that  the  whole  rev- 
enue necessary  to  an  economical  administration  of  the  Govern- 
ment, should  be  raised  by  impost  duties;  with  the  income  from 
the  dividends  on  the  Bank  stock.  No  part  of  it  was  contempla- 
ted to  be  raised  from  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public 
lands,  for,  together  with  the  Compromise  Act,  Congress  passed 
another  act  for  distributing  the  proceeds  of  the  land  sales  among 
the  States.  President  Jackson  signed  the  Compromise  Act,  and 
pocketed  the  Land  Bill ;  and  thereby  violated  the  principle  of 
the  Compromise  at  the  very  moment  of  approving  and  signing 
the  bill. 

The  Compromise  then  was  violated  at  the  very  moment  of  its 
enactment.  It  excluded  the  proceeds  of  the  land  sales  from  the 


42 

annual  ways  and  means  of  the  Government,  while  the  same  pro- 
ceeds were  by  another  act  distributed  to  their  owners,  the  peo- 
ple of  the  separate  States — and  now  Mr.  Tyler  vetoes  the  tem- 
porary Tariff  bill  because  it  violates  the  principle  of  the  Com- 
promise Act  of  1833,  which  was  that  the  whole  revenue  for  the 
annual  economical  administration  of  the  Government  should  be 
raised  by  impost  duties,  and  of  the  act  of  September,  1841, 
which  makes  the  proceeds  of  the  land  sales  part  of  the  ways  and 
means  for  the  year,  whenever  the  impost  duties  upon  any  one  ar- 
ticle exceed  twenty  per  cent,  ad  valorem. 

It  was  the  proviso  in  the  act  of  September,  1841,  which  null- 
ified the  principle  of  the  Compromise  Act  of  1833.  Tine' prin- 
ciple was,  to  raise  the  whole  revenue  for  annual  expenditure  by 
impost  duties.  The  proviso  was,  that  whenever  the  impost  du- 
ties should  exceed  20  per  cent,  the  States  should  be  robbed  of 
the  income  from  their  lands  to  supply  the  deficit  in  the  National 
Treasury.  The  proviso  was  in  direct  conflict  no  less  with  mor- 
al honesty,  than  with  prudent  policy,  and  with  the  principle  of  the 
Compromise.  The  distribution  itself  rested  on  the  principle  that 
the  proceeds  of  the  sales  were  the  property  of  the  States.  If 
so,  the  Federal  Government  had  no  right  to  take  the  whole,  or 
any  part  of  them,  to  defray  the  current  expenses  of  the  year. 
The  right  of  property  of  the  States,  conceded  by  the  distribu- 
tion with  impost  duties  under  20  per  cent,  could  not  be  divested 
by  an  act  of  Congress  raising  the  impost  duties  on  any  one  arti- 
cle to  21  per  cent.  Then  as  to  the  policy,  no  maxim  of  wise 
government  is  more  firmly  established  than  that  its  revenues  and 
expenditures  should  be  balanced  as  equally  and  steadily  as  possi- 
ble from  year  to  year.  The  efficacy  of  a  protective  revenue  de- 
pends almost  entirely  upon  its  permanency — while  nothing  can  be 
more  unstable  and  fluctuating  than  the  annual  amount  of  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands.  It  has  varied  from  less 
than  one  to  more  than  thirty  millions  in  a  year.  To  make  the 
revenues,  destined  to  fulfil  the  pecuniary  obligations  of  the  nation, 
depend  upon  the  vicissitudes  of  land  speculation,  is  to  turn  the 
common  Treasury,  the  guard  and  guardian  of  the  public  faith  into 
a  Faro  Bank. 

But  the  motive  of  Mr.  Tyler  for  this  stubborn  adherence  to 
the  proviso  of  the  act  of  September,  1841,  is  but  too  apparent. 
It  is  a  shoot  from  the  joint  stock  of  Nullification  and  Slavery. 
It  is  to  deprive  the  States  forever  of  all  income  from  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands.  He  knows  as  wrell  as  that 
the  day  differs  from  the  night,  that  the  day  will  never  dawn,  when 
a  duty  of  twenty  per  cent,  ad  valorem  on  imposts  will  suffice  to 
defray  the  current  expenses  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States — and  as  that  day  will  never  come,  his  proviso  is  equiva- 


43 

lent  to  a  standing  law  that  no  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  the 
land  sales  shall  ever  be  made  to  the  States ;  and  that  is  un- 
doubtedly his  intention.  All  the  proceeds  of  the  lands  will  b$ 
wasted  in  meeting  the  daily  demands  on  the  common  Treasury, 
and  the  richest  inheritance  ever  bestowed  by  omnipotent  good- 
ness upon  the  family  of  man,  will  vanish  like  an  unsubstantial 
pageant,  and  perish,  in  the  using,  as  if  consumed  by  fire. 

He  says  in  the  Veto — u  The  existing  laws,  as  /  am  advised, 
are  sufficient  to  authorize  and  enable  the  collecting  officers,  under 
the  directions  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  to  levy  the  du- 
ties imposed  by  the  act  of  1833." 

As  he  was"  advised! — Advised  by  whom?  The  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  a  distinguished  lawyer,  and  specially  charged  with 
the  Department,  responsible  for  the  executive  action  on  this  sub- 
ject, had,  many  months  before,  warned  Congress  that  it  might 
well  be  questioned  whether,  without  further  legislation  by  Con- 
gress, any  duties  could  lawfully  be  collected  after  the  30th  of 
June.  The  great  majority  of  the  lawyers  in  both  Houses,  inclu- 
ding Mr.  Calhoun,  one  of  the  authors  of  the  Compromise  Act, 
were  decidedly  of  opinion  that  no  such  authority  existed — not 
one  member  of  the  House  ventured  to  avow  the  opinion  that  it 
did  exist.  If  it  did  exist  at  all,  it  was  only  by  forced  and  strain- 
ed inferences  and  constructions  of  the  Compromise  Act.  The 
question  was  at  least  extremely  doubtful. 

There  is  no  usurpation  by  an  Executive  Chief  Magistrate,  in 
modern  times,  so  odious  and  detestable,  as  that  of  levying  taxes 
upon  the  people  without  the  authority  of  law.  It  was  the  pre- 
cise act  of  Charles  the  First,  which  caused  the  downfall  of  his 
monarchy,  and  brought  him  to  the  block.  Charles  was  not  only 
advised  by  his  Attorney  General  that  he  had  authority  to  levy 
ship  n^oney  without  act  of  Parliament,  but  eight  out  of  the  twelve 
judges  of  England  decided  that  he  had,  and  imposed  a  heavy  fine 
upon  John  Hampden  for  contesting  it.  Charles  had  infinitely 
stronger  reasons  for  believing  that  he  possessed  this  power,  than 
Mr.  Tyler  could  have — yet  for  persevering  in  the  exercise  of 
that  solemnly  adjudicated  right,  he  bears  the  brand  of  a  detested 
tyrant,  two  hundred  years  after  his  death  upon  the  scaffold,  and 
will  bear  it  to  the  end  of  time.  George  the  Third  was  not  only 
advised  by  his  Attorney  General,  but  by  his  Judges -and  Parlia- 
ment, that  they  had. the  right  to  levy  impost  duties  upon  tea,  and 
painters'  oil  and  colors,  in  the  colonies,  and  that  belief  severed 
the  British  Empire  in  twain.  Mr.  Tyler's  confidence  in  his  At- 
torney General's  advice,  must  have  rested  on  the  stronger  pillar 
of  a  slave-holding  Supreme  Court  ;  and  truly,  with  the  recorded 
reasoning  of  its  Southern  Judges,  in  the  case  of  the  Antelope, 
and  the  more  recent  case  of  Prigg  vs.  the  State  of  Pennsylvania, 


44 

t 

there  is  as  little  favor  to  be  expected  from  their  decision,  when 
the  act  of  a  brother  slave-holder  President  of  the  United  States 
comes  in  conflict  with  the  first  principles  of  human  liberty,  as 
from  Captain  Tyler  himself. 

Mr.  Tyler,  before  he  sent  this  veto  to  the  House,  had  already 
caused  instructions  to  be  given  to  the  Collectors  of  the  Customs, 
to  continue  the  collection  of  duties  20  per  cent,  ad  valorem  after 
the  30th  of  June,  under  regulations  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Trea- 
sury. The  3d  section  of  the  Compromise  Act  had  prescribed 
that,  after  the  30th  of  June,  1842,  the  duties  should  be  assessed 
upon  the  home  valuation,  Bunder  such  regulations  as  may  be 
prescribed  by  law" — and  the  6th  section  provided  that  after  the 
same  30th  of  June,  1842,  certain  articles  may  be  admitted  to 
entry,  subject  to  such  duty,  not  exceeding  20  per  cent,  ad  valo- 
rem, as  shall  be  provided  for  by  law.  The  Attorney  General 
advised  that  the  home  valuation  might  be  assessed  under  regula- 
tions, prescribed  not  by  law,  but* by  the  Secretary  of  the  Trea- 
sury ;  and  his  reason  for  it  was  that  the  words  may  be  were 
equivalent  to  u  may  or  may  not  be" — and  when  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  reminded  him  of  the  words  shall  be,  in  the  6th  sec- 
tion of  the  act,  he  replied  that  they  confirmed  him  in  his  former 
opinion.  This  is  the  paltering  with  language  which  Mr.  Tyler 
expects  will  be  sanctioned  by  the  solemn  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States. 

A  resolution  of  the  House  called  on  the  Secretary* of  the 
Treasury  to  inform,  whether  any  such  instructions  had  been  issu- 
ed to  the  Collectors,  and  if  so,  for  a  copy  of  them,  and  whether 
he  had  changed  his  opinion,  strongly  doubting  whether  any  duties 
could  be  collected  after  the  30th  of  June,  and  if  so,  for  the  rea- 
sons for  the  change.  This  call  was  answered  by  the  Secretary, 
not  admitting  any  change  of  his  own  opinion,  but  reporting  the 
opinion  of  the  Attorney  General,  advising  the  President  that  the 
duties  authorised  by  the  Compromise  Act  to  be  assessed  under 
regulations  which  shall  be  provided  for  by  laic,  might  just  as  well 
be  collected  under  his  authority,  without  law  ;  and  that  the  in- 
structions to  the  Collectors  two  of  which,  of  contradictory  im- 
port were  annexed  to  the  report,  and  that  these  instructions  were 
issued  in  conformity  to  this  advice  of  the  Attorney  General. 

The  Secretary's  report  was  referred  first  to  the  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means,  and  then  to  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary, 
the  chairman  of  which,  Mr.  Daniel  D.  Barnard,  one  of  the 
ablest  members  of  the  House,  reported  a  review  and  analysis  of 
the  Attorney  General's  advice,  scattering  its  arguments  to  the 
winds ;  and  the  committee  reported  a  bill  to  supply  the  authority 
for  a  lawful  collection  of  duties,  and  to  legalize,  as  far  as  the  power 
of  Congress  itself  was  competent  to  do  so,  the  collection  of  duties, 


45 

which  Mr.  Tyler  had  presumed  to  ordain  without  law.  The 
whole  of  this  transaction  was,  in  my  deliberate  opinion,  so  utterly 
lawless,  and  the  assumption,  not  only  of  legislative,  but  of  the 
whole  taxing  power  of  Congress,  so  flagrant,  that  I  believed  it  a 
clear  case  for  the  exercise  of  the  impeaching  power  of  the  House 
of  Representatives.  But  it  was  equally  clear  that  a  majority  of 
two  thirds  of  the  Senators,  prepared  to  vindicate  this  outrage 
upon  the  Constitution,  and  upon  the  liberties  of  the  People, 
would  be  a  hopeless  expectation  ;  and  as  the  lawfulness  of  Mr. 
Tyler's  legislative  taxation  was  ultimately  to  be  decided  by  a 
political,  Southern,  sectional  Supreme  Court,  there  was  no  bet- 
ter prospect  for  the  self-evident  truths  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence in  that  quarter,  than  in  the  Senate.  Impeachment, 
therefore,  was  de  facto  out  of  the  question,  and  the  daring  prac- 
tical assumption  of  the  legislative  and  taxing  power  on  the  first  of 
July,  was  followed  the  very  next  day  by  the  letter  to  the  dinner 
party  at  Philadelphia,  asserting,  in  so  many  words,  that  the  Con- 
stitution denies  to  Congress  the  right  to  pass  any  law  without  his 
approval :  thereby  "  imparting  to  it  [the  Executive]  for  wise 
purposes,  an  active  agency  in  all  legislation." 

These  violent  Executive  inroads  upon  the  Constitutibn,  and 
imminently  dangerous  examples,  far  transcending  any  thing  ever 
attempted  or  claimed  by  Andrew  Jackson,  compelled  me  to  de- 
part from  the  passive  and  almost  unresisting  silence  with  which 
I  had  witnessed  the  overbearing,  inconsistent,  and  arbitrary  pro- 
ceedings of  Mr.  Tyler  at  the  preceding  session:  I  felt  it  to  be 
due  to  myself,  to  my  country,  and  to  the  cause  of  freedom,  to 
take  my  own  stand,  and  to  bear  emphatic  testimony,  both  against 
his  pretensions  and  his  practices. 

The  deposit,  in  the  Department  of  State,  of  the  reasons  for 
approving  and  signing  the  Apportionment  Bill,  preceded  only  by 
four  days  the  veto  of  the  temporary  Tariff  Bill.  I  considered 
this  deposit,  and  approval,  as  the  most  insidious,  and  profligate 
instance  of  double-dealing,  which  had  disclosed  the  character  of 
the  man.  The  intention  was  evident.  It  was  an  incendiary' at- 
tempt to  kindle  and  inflame  resistance  against  that  section  of  the 
law,  under  the  banner  of  State  sovereignty.  It  was  Nullification 
brandishing  the  torch  of  civil  war.  It  was  to  prostrate  the  legis- 
lative power  of  Congress  before  the  counter  legislation  of  separate 
States  ;  and  it  prepared  for  the  first  meeting  of  the  28th  Congress, 
a  conflict  between  the  authorities  of  the  Union  and  of  the  States, 
more  calculated  to  rend  them  asunder,  than  any  thing  that  has 
ever  brought  them  into  collision.  I  moved  the  reference  of  the 
deposit  reasons  to  a  Select  Committee,  which  reported  a  severe 
review  of  the  deposit  reasons,  and  a  resolution  protesting  against 
this  procedure  of  Mr.  Tyler.  His  friends  in  the  House,  well 


46 

knowing  that  the  report  and  resolution  would,  if  'discussed,  have 
been  adopted  by  the  House,  contrived  to  dodge  the  considera- 
tion of  the  report,  by  objections  which  could  be  overruled  only 
by  majorities  of  two  thirds. 

The  duties  of  20  per  cent,  ad  valorem  were,  for  the  space  of 
two  months,  from  the  first  of  July  to  the  31st  of  August,  actually 
levied  under  the  Tyler  ordinance,  and  the  advice  of  his  Attorney 
General.  From  one  to  two  millions  of  dollars  may  have  been 
thus  collected;  but  the  importers  of  the  articles  on  which  the 
duties  have  been  levied,  have  not  been  unresisting  sufferers  of 
'  this  wrong.  They  have  protested  against  it,  and  brought  suits 
against  the  collectors  of  the  Customs,  which  are  to  abide  the  de- 
cision of  the  Supreme  tribunal  of  the  nation.  If  John  Marshall 
still  presided  over  that  Court,  and  Bushrod  Washington  were  yet 
one  of  its  members  Captain  Tyler  would  never  have  made  this 
experiment  upon  their  justice  and  their  sympathies.  We  are 
now  to  await  the  Tesult. 

The  two  Hbuses  of  Congress  proceeded  to  mature  what  they 
intended  for  a  permanent  Tariff.  It  was  eminently  protective  to 
the  internal  industry  and  manufactures  of  the  country,  and  was 
presented  to  the  President  on  the  6th  day  of  August.  He  re- 
turned it  to  the  House  with  his  objections,  on  the  9th.  The 
main  reason  assigned  for  the  veto  of  the  temporary  Tariff  Bill, 
had  been  that  it  separated  the  appropriation  of  revenue  from  im- 
post duties,  from  that  of  the  proceeds  of  the  public  lands,  by 
reserving  the  latter  for  distribution  to  the  States.  In  the  pre- 
sent bill  he  begins  by  admitting  that  he  had  recommended  the 
distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  the  land  sales,  but  says  he  had 
coupled  it  with  a  condition,  that  the  impost  duties  should  not  ex- 
ceed 20  per  cent,  ad  valorem  ;  and  immediately  after  he  makes 
it  his  prime  objection  to  this  bill,  that  it  couples  the  revenue  from 
impost  with  the  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  the  land  sales, 
thus  uniting  two  subjects  which  have,  but  says,  no  affinity  or  con- 
gruity  with  each  other.  So  that'his  objections  to  the  two  bills 
are,  first,  that  they  uncoupled  two  subjects  which  he  had  coupled, 
and  secondly,  that  they  had  coupled  the  same,  identical  two  sub- 
jects. In  the  condition  itself,  upon  which  alone  he  says  he 
recommended  the  distribution,  there  was  disingenuousness  and 
bad  faith  ;  for  he  knew,  and  avows  in  the  same  message,  that  20 
per  cent,  ad  valorem  would  not  suffice  to  defray  the  expenses, 
even  of  an  economical  administration  :  he  knew  that  the  duties, 
even  for  revenue,  must  be  raised  above  20  per  cent.  What, 
then,  could  be  the  motive  for  recommencing  a  distribution,  upon 
a  condition  which  he  knew  could  not  be  complied  with  ?  What 
but  to  get  credit  for  recommending  distribution,  and  vet  inflexi- 
bly withholding  it  ? 


47 

i** 

I  moved  in  the  House  the  reference  of  this  veto  to  a  select 
committee  of  13  members,  to  consider  and -report  thereon; 
which,  after  much  chicanery  and  petty  stratagem  to  escape  it, 
was  carried.  The  committee  consisted  of  ten  Whigs,  one  offi- 
cer of  the  guard,  and  two  Five  Points  Democrats.  My  report 
was  signed  by  nine  members  of  the  committee,  from  nine  differ- 
ent States,  besides  myself,  and  was  adopted  by  a  Resolution  of 
the  House,  taken  by  yeas  and  nays,  100  to  80.  There  were 
two  minority  reports — one  by  the  officer  of  the  guard,  bristled 
with  Tylerish  arguments  against  the  proceedings  of  the  House — 
the  other,  by  the  two  democrats,  consisting  chiefly  of  personal 
buffoonry  upon  me.  The  reports  were  all  printed  by  order  of  the 
House,  and  are  among  the  documents  of  the  session.  No  extra 
number  of  copies  was  printed  by  order  of  the  House  ;  but  I 
shall  send  a  copy  of  my  report  to  every  town  in  this  Congres- 
sional District,  as  a  parting  valedictory  to  my  constituents. 

It  concluded  with  a  Resolution  proposing  an  amendment  of 
the  Constitution  to  restrict  the  exercise  of  the  vqfo  power.  A' 
majority  of  the  committee  would  have  preferred  a  Resolution  of 
Impeachment,  but  the  special  grounds  for  impeachment  were  not 
merely  the  abusive  exercise  of  the  veto,  but  far  more  the  ground- 
less claim  and  lawless  usurpation  of  legislative  power,  in  levying 
taxes  without  law,  and  issuing  regulations  expressly  reserved  'by 
law  for  the  action  of  Congress  ;  and  in  the  treachery  of  approv- 
ing and  signing  a  bill,  and  depositing  in  the  Department  of  State 
an  incendiary  fire-brand  against  its  most  important  enactment. 
The  referenc.e  of  the  House  to  the*  committee  was  only  the  veto 
message,  which  might  not  of  itself  warrant  an  impeachment, 
which  even  if  instituted  by  the  House  would  certainly  not  be  sus- 
'tained  by  a  vote  of  two  thirds  in  the  Senate.  It  was  not  ex- 
pected that  the  proposed  amendment  of  the  Constitution  would 
be  carried  by  a  vote  of  two  thirds  in* either  House,  but  it  was  be- 
lieved that  the  vote  of  the  House  upon  it,  would  mark  their  dis- 
approbation of  Mr.  Tyler's  abusive  exercise  of  a  constitutional 
power,  and  yet  observe  towards  him  all  the  respect  due  to  his 
official  character,  as  head  of  the  Executive  Department.  The 
vote- of  the  House  upon  the  Resolution  was  98  to  90.  A  ma- 
jority— but  not  two  thirds. 

On  the  30th  of  August,  the  last  day  before  the  close  of  the 
session,  Mr.  Tyler  sent  to  the  Hou^e  a  whining  and  insulting  pro- 
test against  the  act  of  the  House  adopting  this  report  ;  denying 
the  right  of  the  House  to  pass  any  censure  upon  his  acts  as  a 
co-ordinate  department  of  the  Government — and  demanding  that 
his  protest  should  be  entered  on  the  journal  of  the  House.  With 
the  characteristic  cunning  of  a  double-dealer,  he  delayed  the 
transmission  of  this  protest  to  so  late  a  moment,  that  there  .could 


48 

be  no  discussion  in  the  House  upon  it,  and  on  six  different  pre- 
tences, all  equally  frivolous  or  groundless,  he  complained  of  the 
injustice  of  the  House  in  the  adoption  of  my  report.  Under  the 
mask  of  this  protest  against  the  act  of  the  House,  I  saw  his  de- 
vice to  make  up  an  issue  before  the  country  and  the  world,  be- 
tween him  and  me,  under  circumstances  in  which  I  should  be 
deprived  of  the  opportunity  of  replying  to  his  sophisms  and  his 
lamentations.  But  there  was  no  time  for  debate.  I  merely  gave 
notice  to  the  House  that  for  the  composition  and  the  presentation 
of  that  report,  which  the  House  had  adopted  as  their  own,  I  held 
myself  responsible  to  the  House,  to  the  country,  to  the  world, 
and  to  Mr.  Tyler  himself,  who  should  hear  from  me  on  the  sub- 
ject elsewhere — a  pledge  which  I  hereby  redeem. 

But  all  the  grounds  of  Mr.  Tyler's  protest  were  immediately 
withdrawn  from  under  him  by  a  mere  recurrence  to  the  journal  of 
the  Senate,  to  his  own  recorded  votes,  and  to  the  thrilling  elo- 
quence of  the  present  Secretary  of  State,  on  an  occasion  so  strik- 
ingly similar,  that  all  the  differences  between  them,  forcibly  ope- 
rated against  trie  present  pretensions  of  Mr.  Tyler.  In  1834, 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  of  which  Mr.  Tyler  was  then 
a  member,  passed  certain  resolutions  of  censure  upon  certain 
measures  of  President  Jackson's  administration.  Whereupon 
he  sent  a  protest  to  the  Senate,  denying  their  right  to  pass  such 
resolutions,  and  demanding  that  his  protest  should  be  entered  on 
their  journal.  Mr.  Tyler  had  voted  for  the  resolutions  of  cen- 
sure, and  voted  to  "reject  the  protest,  to  refuse  to  enter  it  upon 
fheir  journal,  and  for  a  resolution  expressly  denying  the  right  of 
the  President  of  the  United  States  to  send  a  protest  to  the  Sen- 
ate against  any. of  its  proceedings.  All  the  topics  of  Mr.  Ty- 
ler's protest  were  annihilated  by  the  mere  record  of  his  own 
votes;  and  the  House,  by  majorities  of  87  to  46,  of  86  to  48, 
and  of  86  to  53,  turned  upon  Captain  Tyler  the  battery  of  his 
own  artillery,  by  adopting  against  his  protest,  the  identical  reso- 
lutions voted  for  by  himself  against  the  protest  of  Andrew  Jack- 
son. 

You  are  aware,  Fellow  Citizens,  that  my  name  is  not  among 
those  which  voted  for,  and  finally  carried  the  tariff  bill,  which  at 
last  obtained  the  approval  and  signature  of  Mr.  Tyler,  who  thus 
succeeded  in  extorting  from  you,  the  portion  of  the  proceeds  of 
the  sales  of  the  public  lands — a  portion,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, your  property,  as  much  as  the  dwelling  house,  which  any 
one  of  you  has  inherited  from  his  father,  or  purchased  for  a  lawful 
.conveyance  in  fee  simple.  The  distribution  of  these  avails  of  your 
lands  would  enable  your  Legislature  to  discharge  the  principal 
and  interest  of  the  whole  debt  contracted  by  them  for  those  ines- 
timable rail  roads,  which  are  pouring  into  your  State  treasures 


49 

beyond  "  all  the  wealth  of  Ormus  or  of  Ind;"  which  are  giving 
verdure  to  the  cultivation  of  your  fields  ;  weight,  fulness  and 
multitude  to  the  garners  of  your  harvests  ;  comfort  and  compe- 
tency to  the  industry  of  your  farmers,  your  mechanics,  your 
manufacturers,  and  your  merchants  ;  skill,  science,  invention,  to 
your  handicraftsmen;  hardihood,  energy,  self-confidence  in  dan- 
ger to  your  mariners  and  fishermen;  courage  and  conduct  to  your 
warriors  upon  the  ocean  and  upon  the  lakes,  the  best  defenders 
upon  the  seas  of  your  country  upon  the  land  ;  and  wings  to  the 
expansion  of  your  commerce,  to  every  harbor  of  the  habitable 
globe — which  give  facility  and  speed,  outstripping  the  winds,  to 
your  intercommunications  with  your  friends,  your  families,  your 
fellow  citizens,  your  connections  in  business,  and  your  excursions 
of  pleasure,  till  the  obstructions  of  time  and  space  almost  vanish 
before  you,  and  till,  by  progressive  approximation,  the  teeming 
myriads  of  your  population,  spread  over  two  millions  of  square 
miles,  promise  to  cluster  into  one  great  consolidated  family  of 
brotherhood.  These,  and  all  these,  are  but  a  part  of  the  bless- 
ings secured  to  you  and  your  posterity  by  the  debts,  which  the 
wise  and  intelligent  foresight  of  your  Legislature  has  contracted, 
and  which  you  are  not  the  men  to  think  can  be  paid  by  repudia- 
tion. No  !  Sooner  would  you  stint  your  children  in  their  bread. 
But  in  contracting  these  debts,  your  Legislature  knew  that  your 
property  in  the  public  lands,  if  honestly  paid  you,  would  be  am- 
ply sufficient  to  repay  you  every  dollar  of  charge  which  the  con- 
tracting of  these  debts  would  necessarily  bring  upon  you.  And 
on  the  30th  of  January,  1839,  they  adopted  the  following  Re- 
solves, which,  on  the  13th  of  January,  1840,  were  presented  by 
Governor  Lincoln  to  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Uni- 
ted States. 

COMMONWEALTH  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

IN    THE    YEAR    ONE    THOUSAND    EIGHT    HUNDRED    AND    THIRTY-NINE. 

Resolves  in  Relation  to  the  Public  Lands  of  the  United  States. 

Resolved  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  in  General  Court  assem- 
bled, That  the  public  lands  of  the  United  States,  whether  acquired  by  con- 
quest, cession,  or  purchase,  are  emphatically  the  property  of  the  Union,  and 
that  they  ought,  therefore,  to  enure  to  the  use  and  benefit  of  all  the  States, 
in  just  proportions,  and  cannot  be  directly  or  indirectly  appropriated  to  the 
use  and  benefit  of  any  particular  State  or  States,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  oth- 
ers, without  an  infringement  of  the  principles  upon  which  cessions  from 
States  were  expressly  made,  and  a  violation  of  the  spirit  of  our  national  com- 
pact; as  well  as  the  principles  of  justice  arid  sound  policy. 

Resolved,  That  we  deem  it  the  duty  of  Congress,  immediately  to  adopt  some 
permanent  and  equitable  system  for  the  gradual  disposition  of  the  public  lands, 
having  due  regard  to  the  interests  of  the  whole  Union;  and  providing  for  the 
distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  these  lands  among  the  States,  in  obedience  to 
the  conditions  imposed  by  the  terms  of  cession,  and  the  obvictis  demands  of 
equity . 


50 

Thus  you  see,  Fellow  Citizens,  that  the  distribution  of  the 
proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands,  is  inseparably  connect- 
ed with  the  means  of  relieving  you  from  the  burden  of  your 
State  debts,  and  of  enabling  your  Legislature  to  discharge,  faith- 
fully, every  dollar  of  those  debts,  principal  and  interest,  without 
imposing,  ultimately,  one  dollar  of  burden  upon  you.  And  this 
immense,  uncalculated  vulue  of  your  property  in  the  public  lands 
is  thus  important,  not  only  to  you  and  your  children,  for  ages  to 
come,  but  to  the-  whole  people  of  the  nineteen  States  of  this 
Union,  most  of  them  more  deeply  involved  in  debts  contracted 
for  the  same  purposes  of  internal  improvement,  than  yourselves. 
Nor  less  important  to  the  people  of  the  seven  States,  whose  par- 
simonious policy  has  kept  them  free  from  debt,  but  cast  them 
proportionally  behind  their  sisters,  in  the  progress  of  internal  im- 
provement. They  are  all  entitled  to  their  portion  of  the  prop- 
erty, in  the  distribution  of  the  proceeds,  and  although  the  Legis- 
latures of  some  of  them  have  been  so  infatuated  as  to  declare  they 
would  refuse  their  portion,  should  it  be  tendered  to  them,  the  ex- 
ample of  Georgia  has  furnished  edifying  proof,  with  what  grace- 
ful resignation  this  stubborn  virtue  would  melt  under  the  radiant 
sunbeams  bf  a  real  distribution.  By  receiving  their  portions  of 
the  proceeds,  those  States  may,  if  they  please,  alleviate  the  ex- 
isting burdens  of  taxation  on  their  own  people;  or  constitute  a 
fund  for  internal  improvement  within  themselves,  which  will  re- 
pay them  and  their  people,  to  ten  fold,  aye,  to  a  hundred  fold, 
their  amount,  in  prosperity. 

Fellow  Citizens,  I  have  opened  and  exposed  to  your  view  the 
dark  chambers  of  the"  motive  of  Andrew  Jackson,  who  first 
broached  the  doctrine  of  giving  away  those  public  lands  to  spec- 
ulating adventurers,  or  to  the  States  in  which  they  are  situated, 
and  of  John  Tyler,  for  adhering,  with  such  unrelenting  tenacity, 
to  the  system  of  squandering  the  whole  of  this  exhaustless  treas- 
ure in  the  current  annual  expenditures  of  the  National  Adminis- 
tration; in  doubling  armies,  quadrupling  navies,  and  filching  funds 
to  buy  up  popular  newspapers,  and  hungry  sycophants,  to  pander 
for  presidential  electioneering.  The  motive  is  one,  though  the 
means  are  not  the  same.  It  comes  from  the  store-house  of  Null- 
ification. Twin-brother  to  the  forty  bale  theory,  and  the  outlaw- 
ry of  domestic  industry,  already  disclosed  to  you  by  the  letter 
of  my  friend,  Mr.  Nathan  Appleton.  It  is  of  the  same  family 
with  the  war  against  Mexico  for  the  annexation  of  Texas  ;  with 
the  war  against  England  for  the  Island  of  Cuba  ;  or  to  burn  at 
the  stake  the  self-emancipators  of  the  Creole.  Its  most  dreaded 
foes  are  the  self-evident  truths,  the  right  of  petition,  the  panoply 
of  the  habeas  corpus,  the  trial  by  jury,  the  freedom  of  speech, 
of  the  press,  and  of  legislative  debate.  The  first  founder  of  the 


51 

family  is  SLAVERY.  Its  ultimate  aspiration  of  destiny  is,  the 
the  dominion  of  the  slave-ridden  over  the  free.  Its  antipathy  to 
the  African  slave-trade  is  for  the  monopoly  of  the  market  in  hu- 
man flesh.  Its  fearful  but  remorseless  foreboding  of  the  future, 
is  the  freedom  of  all  mankind — and  its  abhorrence  of  all  internal 
improvement  by  the  mighty  arm  of  the  Union,  is  to  rivet  forever 
the  manacles  and  fetters  of  the  slave. 

To  wrest  from  the  people  of  the  free  States  the  property  which 
would  enable  them  to  pursue,  without  over-burdensome  taxation, 
their  own  ardent  impulse  to  the  improvement  of  their  own  condi- 
tion, Mr.  Tyler  conceived  the  device  of  diverting  all  those 
funds  into  the  muddy  stream  of  the  daily  national  expenditures, 
with  which  they  would  run  down  and  be  lost.  Mr.  Tyler  vetoes 
the  tariff  bill,  because  it  departs  from  the  compromise,  to  which 
he  attaches  some  mystified  moral  obligation,  and  because  it  clash- 
es with  a  condition  which  he  had  tacked  to  it,  in  direct  violation 
of  the  compromise  itself.  For  I  have  shown  you  that  true  com- 
promise act  of  1833,  so  far  from  contemplating  or  authorizing 
the  application  of  any  part  of  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the 
public  lands  to  the  expenditues  of  the  National  Administration, 
was  presented  to  the  President  together  with  another  act  for  dis- 
tributing all  the  nett  proceeds  of  the  land  sales  among  the  States, 
for  five  years.  That  act  emanated  from  the  same  source,  and 
was  sanctioned  by  the  same  Congress,  at  the  same  time  with  the 
compromise  act;  and  although  on  another  roll  of  parchment,  as 
a  system  of  administration,  formed  a  part  of  it  ;  and  to  tell  us 
now  that  the  seizure  of  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public 
lands  to  supply  the  deficiences  of  the  horizontal  twenty  per  cent, 
impost  duties,  carries  with  it  a  moral  obligation  of  reverence  for 
the  compromise  of  1833,  is  no  better  than  an  attempt  to  blind 
our  eyes  in  the  act  of  picking  our  pockets. 

Fellow  Citizens,  I  had  long  entertained  and  cherished  the  hope 
that  these  public  lands  were  among  the  chosen  instruments  of 
Almighty  power,  not  only  of  promoting  the  virtue,  welfare  and 
happiness  of  millions  upon  millions  of  individuals  and  families  of 
the  human  rrfce,  but  of  improving  the  condition  of  man,  by  es- 
tablishing the  practical,  self-evident  truth  of  the  natural  equality 
and  brotherhood  of  all  mankind,  as  the  foundation  of  all  human 
government,  and  by  banishing  Slavery  and  War  from  the  earth. 
The  extent  of  territory,  the  fertility  of  soil,  the  salubrity  of  cli- 
mate, the  intersection  of  mighty  rivers,  with  the  numberless  mul- 
titude of  their  tributary  streams,  were  all  signal  indications  of  the 
purpose  they  were  granted  to  accomplish.  The  admirable  sys- 
tem of  territorial  government  provided  for  them  by  the  Congress 
of  the  confederation,  the  unfading  glory,  not  only  of  Nathan  Dane, 
but  of  Thomas  Jefferson — and  especially  that  fundamental  prin* 


52 

ciple  of  their  constitution,  that  there  should  be  neither  slavery 
nor  involuntary  servitude  throughout  the  land,  seemed  to  me  like 
the  voice  of  the  precursor  in  the  wilderness,  announcing  the  ad- 
vent of  the  Saviour  of  mankind.  Was  all  this  an  Utopian  day- 
dream ?  Is  the  one  talent,  entrusted  by  the  Lord  of  the  harvest, 
for  the  improvement  of  the  condition  of  man,  to  be  hidden  under 
a  bushel  ?  Is  the  lamp,  destined  to  enlighten  the  world,  to  be 
extinguished  by  the  blasting  breath  of  Slavery  ?  The  project 
first  proclaimed  by  Andrew  Jackson,  in  his  annual  message  of 
December,  1832,  of  giving  away  the  national  inheritance  to  pri- 
vate land  jobbers,  or  to  the  States  in  which  they  lie,  and  to 
renounce  forever  all  national  revenue  to  be  derived  from  them, 
was  the  consummation  of  the  Maysville  road  veto  policy,  and  the 
substitute  for  nullification  to  perpetuate  the  institution  of  slavery 
and  its  dominion  over  the  North  American  Union. 

The  contrivance  of  Mr.  John  Tyler,  to  waste  all  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  land  sales,  by  absorbing  them  in  the  gulph  of  the 
annual  expenditures  of  the  federal  government,  is  a  more  insidi- 
ous, a  more  plausible, 'but  equally  fatal  expedient  to  divert  the 
unparalleled  bounties  of  Providence  from  the  cause  of  freedom, 
to  the  cause  of  oppression  ;  from  the  improvement,  to  the 
degradation  of  the  condition  of  man.  The  proviso  to  the  6th 
Section  of  the  Act  of  Sept.  1841,  to  appropriate  the  proceeds 
of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands,  and  to  grant  pre-emption  rights, 
suspending  the  distribution,  whenever  the  impost  duties  should, 
upon  any  article,  exceed  20  per  cent.,  was  a  tack,  added  to  the 
bill  in  its  passage  through  the  Senate,  after  it  had  passed  the 
House — added  at  the  dictation  of  Mr.  Tyler,  upon  the  usual  in- 
timation, that  without  it  he  would  veto  the  bill.  It  was  equivalent 
to  a  fraudulent  nullification  of  the  distribution  itself,  in  the  very 
process  of  enacting  it.  For  no  one  knew  better  than  Mr.  Tyler, 
that  a  horizontal  impost  duty  of  twenty  per  cent,  could  not  pos- 
sibly supply  the  indispensable  necessities  of  the  treasury,  and 
that  a  suspension  upon  that  condition,  was  in  fact  a  repeal  of  the 
distribution  itself.  I  voted  against  concurring  with  the  Senate, 
in  adopting  this  tack,  which  was  carried  in  the  House,  by  the 
Whigs,  against  their  own  opinions,  as  more  than  one  of  them 
avowed  to  me,  and  in  compliance  with  their  over-ruling  propen- 
sity to  yield  to  the  humors  of  Mr.  Tyler.  He  therefore  was  the 
very  individual  who  linked  the  two  subjects  so  incongruous  to- 
gether ;  the  very  reason  which  he  assigns,  in  the  fore  front  of  the 
veto  of  the  second  Tariff  Bill.  The  real  motive  was  to  snatch 
from  the  people  of  the  separate  States  the  means  of  Baying  their 
debts,  and  accomplishing  their  great  undertakings  of  internal  im- 
provements, forever,  and  the  primary  spur  to  the  motive  was 
the  supremacy,  present  and  prospective,  of  the  slavery  over  the 
freedom  bf  the  Union. 


53 

The  persevering  and  unremitted  exertions  of  the  Whig  majorities 
in  both  houses  of  Congress,  at  the  recent  session,  to  r-escue  this 
Treasure  of  the  separate  States,  from  the  grasp  of  the  spoiler,  and 
the  convulsive  struggle  with  which  he  clung  to  his  hold  upon  it, 
have  been  witnessed  by  you  all :  the  Whig  majorities  concurred  with 
me,  to  the  last  moment,  in  the  opinion  that  the  enactment  at  that 
time,  even  of  a  protective  tariff,  indispensable  as  it  was,  to  the  urgent 
necessities  of  the  Treasury,  to  the  punctuality  of  the  national  good 
faith,  and  to  the  suffering  industry  of  free  labor,  was  yet  but  a 
secondary  object  to  that  of  retaining  unimpaired,  the  birth-right  of 
the  people's  inheritance — the  proceeds  of  the  public  lands,  the  best 
gifts  of  God,,  to  them  and  their  posterity,  for  all  future  time  To 
this  opinion  I  finally  adhered  ;  nor  have  I  yet  yielded  it  to  the  event. 
But  when  it  became  apparent,  that  the  beggary  of  the  Treasury,  the 
glaring  wreck  not  only  of  free  labor,  but  of  all  the  great  interests  of 
the  nation,  and  the  good  name  of  the  nation  itself,  crumbling  into 
ruin  under  the  repudiation  of  the  State  debts,  were  as  nothing  in  the 
eyes  of  Mr.  Tyler,  compared  with  the  glory  of  seizing  upon  the  pro- 
perty of  the  States,  to  pay  the  daily  expenses  of  his  administration, 
then  their  hearts  relented,  and  in  view  of  the  agonizing  distress  of 
their  country,  to  use  the  beautiful  allusion  of  the  true-hearted  Stanly, 
like  the  true  mother,  in'the  judgment  of  Solomon,  they  surrendered 
the  darling  child  to  the  false  pretender,  rather  than  receive  the  half 
of  the  mangled  corpse  as  their  own.  They  passed  the  Tariff  bill 
without  repealing  the  suspensive  proviso,  and  surrendered,  for  the 
moment,  the  property  of  their  copstituents,  to  the  rapacity  and  extor- 
tion of  Captain  Tyler. 

I  cannot  share  with  them  the  honor  of  this  great  sacrifice,  but  I 
freely  yield  it  to  them.  The  tariff  as  it  is,  has  given  some  relief  to 
the  exquisite  suffering  of  all  interests  throughout  the.  Union.  I 
fondly  hope,  that  it  may  definitively  yield  more,  much  more  relief, 
though  I  have  no  expectation  that  it  will  supply  the  indispensable 
wants  of  the  Treasury.  Notwithstanding  the  large  retrenchments 
made  at  the  late  session  of  Congress,  of  the  expenditures  in  the 
War  and  Navy  Departments,  and  in  the  Civil  List,  instead  of  the 
enormous  increase,  recommended  by  Mr.  Tyler  and  his  Secretaries, 
U  appears  by  an  official  publication,  by  the  Clerk  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  that  the  actual  appropriations  amounted  to  a  very 
trifle  less  than  twenty-five  millions  of  dollars.  I  hazard  nothing  in 
saying  that  the  tariff,  even  with  the  superadded  plunder  of  the  pub- 
lic lands,  will  not  yield  twenty.  The  national  debt  is  yet  unprovided 
for,  and  is  daily  increasing.  The  democracy  in  Congress  have  been 
complimented  for  what  they  certainly  never  have  claimed,  their  share 
in  the  enactment  of  the  tariff  without  distribution;  while  the  trumpet 
sound  of  repeal  is  wafted  to  our  ears,  on  the  wings  of  every  South- 
ern breeze.  But  the  Whig  majorities  in  both  Houses  of  Congress, 
when  they  surrendered  for  the  moment,  the  dividends  already  due 
to  their  States,  of  the  proceeds  of  the  lands,  had  no  intention  to  sur- 
render or  abandon  the  principles  of  their  right.  One  half  year  of 
their  dividends  was  already  due  and  payable  to  them,  and  they  passed 


54 

a  separate  act  to  repeal  the  proviso,  suspensive  of  the  distribution. 
Mr.  Tyler,  stiffening  in  his  resistance  to  them,  in  proportion  to  the 
humility  of  their  concessions  to  him,  neither  approved  and  signed 
the  bill,  nor  returned  it,  with  his  objections,  but  smothered  it  with  a 
pocket  veto. 

The  tariff  act  is  eminently  protective ;  far  more  than  it  is  finan- 
cial ;  and  its  approval  and  signature,  by  any  other  than  the  acci- 
dental President,  might  be  considered  as  a  formal  renunciation  of 
that  religious  veneration  for  the  compromise  of  1833,  which  he  has 
announced  as  an  article  of  his  code  of  moral  obligations.  But  little 
reliance  is  to  be  placed  on  the  steadfastness  of  the  tariff,  and  as  to 
the  currency,  the  circulation  of  exchanges,  the  Fiscal  Corporation, 
or  the  Exchequer  of  issues,  the  first  step  is  yet  to  be  taken,  to  re- 
deem the  prostrated  reputation  and  credit  of  the  nation. 

Fellow  Citizens,  I  am  requested  to  say  something  to  you  upon  the 
right  of  petition ;  the  topic  upon  which  your  approving  resolutions 
are  most  peculiarly  gratifying  to  me,  as  it  is  that  upon  which  the  se- 
verest of  my  trials,  as  your  Representative,  has  been  endured. 

I  have  informed  you  how,  at  the  commencement  of  the  present 
Congress,  the  gag-rule,  excluding  all  petitions  touching  the  institu- 
tion o£  slavery,  from  being  received,  after  three  successive  votes  of 
the  House  to  discard  it  from  the  rules,  was  restart d;  first,  by  two 
motions  for  reconsideration,  made  by  members  from  the  key-s'tone 
State,  holding  the  balance  between  the  North  and  South  in  their 
hands,  and  in  the  common  worship  of  God  and  Mammon,  adhering 
in  theory  to  the  true  God,  and  to  the  demon-idol  in  practice.  Next, 
by  the  yielding  compromise  of  excluding  alt  petitions  Jor  that  ses- 
sion, with  the  humbug  appointment  of  a  Select  Committee,  of  five 
slaveholders  and\four  of  the  free  representation,  to  revise  all  the  rules. 
Then  by  staving  off  the  report  of  that  Committee  till  the  last  day  of 
the  session,  and  then  smuggling  into  it  a  new  gag-rule,  against  the 
reception  of  anti-slavery  petitions.  And  lastly,  by  laying  on  the  ta- 
ble, at  the  second  session,  the  report  of  the  Select  Committee,  after 
fixing  a  special  day  for  its  consideration,  and  thereby  leaving  the 
original  gag-rule  in  force,  as  if  it  had  never  been  sot  aside. 

This  is  the  management  by  which  the  gag-rule  of  the  26th  Con- 
gress has  been  fastened  to  the  staple  of  the  *27th,  and  it  has  so  thor- 
oughly prostrated  the  right  of  petition  of  the  whole  people,  that  I 
myself  was  compelled  to  move,"  that  all  petitions  might  be  handed  in 
at  the  Clerk's  table,  for  the  Speaker  to  decide  whether  they  should 
be  received  or  not,  and  that  those  which  he  decided  to  be  received, 
should  be  referred  to  the  appropriate  Committee. 

Thus  stands  the  matter  HOW.  Your  enjoyment  of  the  right  of  pe- 
tition to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  and  that  of  every  freeman 
in  this  Union,  rests  upon  the  arbitrary  fiat  of  a  slave-holding  Speaker. 
Would  to  God  I  could  give  you  any  encouragement  to  expect  a  bet- 
ter order  of  things  in  this  respect.  On  the  first  Monday  of  Decem- 
ber next,  Congress  are  again  to  reassemble.  I  or  some  other  mem- 
ber will  move  to  rescind  tue  sag-rule.  But  we  have  to  deal  with  the 
same  Congress — the  same  President,  whose  name,  and  patronage, 


55 

and  influence  were  so  fatally  used  against  us,  upon  the  struggle  to 
restore  the  rule  ;  and  the  same  House,  which,  after  a  thrice  repeated 
majority  had  testified  their  reprobation  of  it,  by  a  compromise  be- 
tween the  Loco  Foco  democracy  of  the  key-stone  State,  and  the 
slavery  of  the  South,  fell  back  to  the  worship  of  the  foul  idol.  That 
House  will  have  but  three  short  months  to  live.  And  as  notices 
were  given  at  the  close  of  the  late  session,  of  the  intention  of  several 
of  its  members  to  call  up  for  discussion  several  subjects  of  trans- 
cendent importance,  you  will  not  be  surprised,  if,  when  any  motion 
shall  he  made  to  rescind  the  rule,  you  should  hear  of  its  being  met 
by  objections  of  order,  previous  questions,  and  motions  to  lay  on 
the  table,  which  will  be  supported  by  the  whole  slave  representation 
in  the  House — by  the  Northern  Five  Points  democracy,  the  con- 
sistent Swiss  guards  of  Southern  slavery,—  by  the  balancers  of  the 
key-stone  State,  and  even  by  the  languid,  compromising  non-resist- 
ants of  the  North,  afraid  of  answering  a  fool  according  to  his  folly, 
and  flinching  from  the  attitude  of  defiance,  flung  in  their  faces  by  the 
bullying  threat  of  readiness  to  meet  them  "  here  or  elsewhere."  And 
if  all  these  expedients  should  fail  to  stifle  a  full  debate  on  the  motion 
to  rescind,  it  may  be  turned  into  a  motion  to  censure  or  expel  Mr. 
Joshua  Giddings  or  me,  for  presenting  a  petition,  and  after  spending 
ten  days  of  debate  upon  that,  lay  it  on  the  table,  and  set  the  news- 
paper reporters  of  the  South,  ay,  and  of  the  North,  to  charge  him 
and  me  with  wasting  the  time  of  the  House  and  of  the  Nation,  by 
stirring  up  incendiary  abstractions.  With  that  approaching  short 
session  of  Congress,  my  term  of  duty  in  your  service  will  close. 
How  the  next  Congress  will  be  composed,  who  can  tell  1  '  But  look 
well  to  the  firmness  and  discernment  of  the  candidates  who  are  to  rep- 
resent you  in  the  councils  of  the  nation  hereafter.  I  am  unwilling  to 
name  all  those  who  share  the  responsibility  of  the  restoration  of 
the  gag-rule;  but  it  will  never  be  rescinded  so  long  as  any  of  your 
Representatives  will  listen  to  compromises  for  a  single  session. 

There  is  one  part  of  Mr.  Tyler's  administration,  upon  the  manage- 
ment and  result  of  which,  thus  far,  we  may  all  join  in  congratula- 
tion and  applause — and  it  is  precisely  that  part,  the  whole  responsi- 
bility of  which  has  rested  upon  other  shoulders.  For  if  his  feelings 
and  intentions  are  to  be  infered  from  the  first  manifestations  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  as  well  from  the  ostensible  head  of  his 
corporal's  guard,  as  from  his  auxiliar  democracy  of  the  Five  Points, 
they  were  far  from  being -favorable  to  the  Treaty  concluded  between 
the  Secretary  of  State  and  the  late  special  minister  from  Great  Bri- 
tain On  the  day  when  the  Treaty  was  transmitted  to  the  Senate 
for  their  advice  and  consent  to  its  ratification,  a  double  movement 
in  the  House,  from  'the  repudiating  democracy  and  from  the  Captain 
of  the  guard,  who  had  labored  so  hard  to  turn  me  out  the  chair  of 
the  Committee  of  Foreign  Affairs,  and  who  failing  in  that  well  con- 
certed maiuEUvre,  had  sounded  and  led  off  the  retreat  of  the  whole 
slave-dealing  detachment  from  that  post,  indicated  that  the  con- 
science of  Captain  Tyler  was  by  no  means  reconciled  to  the  Treaty 
concluded  by  the  Secretary  of  State.  The  indications,  of  Captain 


56 

Tyler's  feelers  of  the  public  pulse,  the  Madisonian  and  the  Globe, 
coincided  exactly  with  thi$  joint  movement  of  Mississippi  repudia- 
tion, and  of  Albemarle  slave-dealing.  The  movement  was  arrested 
on  the  spot,  by  Mr.  Horace  Everett,  of  Vermont,  as  you  may  all  see 
by  referring  to  the  reports  of  the  debates  in  the  House,  of  that  day, 
and  the  member  from  Albemarle  reserved  himself  for  minority  re- 
port number  one,  from  the  Committee  on  the  second  tariff  bill  veto. 

Even  after  the  Treaty  was  ratified,  the  Democrat  of  the  Five 
Points,  who  had  told  the  House  how  easily,  in  the  event  of  a  war 
with  England,  we  could  burn  the  city  of  London,  and  perhaps  spunge 
two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  of  debt,  and  who  had  so  kindly  in- 
structed Lord  Ashburton,  how,  by  stipulating  reparation  upon  all 
the  five  points  of  British  aggression,  he  could  go  home  and  be  re- 
warded with  an  Earldom— after  the  Treaty  had  been  ratified,  told 
the  House  with  great  emphasis,  that  the  Treaty  had  yet  to  undergo 
the  ratification  of  that  House,  and  very  significantly  intimated  that 
it  never  should  receive  that  ratification  with  his  consent.  So  we 
must  not  yet  be  too  confident  of  the  final  ratification  of  the  Treaty, 
while  the  Five  Points  democracy,  repudiation,  and  Tylerism,  have 
combined  their  forces  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  against  its 
ratification  by  that  House.  As  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
is  understood  to  be  an  instrument  of  limited  powers,  if  you  are  dis- 
posed to  inquire  in  which  of  its  articles  it  grants  to  the  House  of 
Representatives  the  power  of  ratifying  Treaties,  you  may  be  assured 
that  you  will  not  find  it  there;  but  it  may  perhaps  be  inferred  from 
a  dissertation  on  the  veto  power,  in  minority  report  number  two, 
from  the  Select  Committee  on  the  second  Tariff  Bill  Veto. 

These  indications  may  well  justify  some  distrust  of  the  real  dispo- 
sitions and  purposes  of  Captain  Tyler,  with  regard  to  the  faithful 
execution,  if  not  to  the  ratification  of  the  Treaty.  We  are  yet  to 
see  how  it  will  be  treated  by  his  partizans,  when  it  comes  before  the 
House  of  Representatives,  for  the  appropriations  to  carry  it  into  exe- 
cution. The  Treaty  has  been  made  public,  though  not  in  official 
form,  and  has  been  so  universally  approved,  that  even  the  cavils  of 
the  Madisonian  and  the  Globe,  though  not  their  caustics  against  the 
negotiator,  have  been  silenced.  To  him  the  whole  credit  of  the  ne- 
gotiation and  its  results  has  been  ascribed — I  believe  justly  :  but  I 
yield  to  Mr.  Tyler's  administration,  and  to  himself  personally,  the 
credit  of  having  confided  the  whole  responsibility  of  the  negotiation 
to  Mr.  Webster,  and  of  having  ratified  the  Treaty  when  concluded. 

Fellow  Citizens — Among  the  animadversions  upon  my  public  con- 
duct which  have  occasionally  been  brought  to  my  notice,  and  for 
which  I  am  accountable  to  you,  is  the  charge  that  in  the  controver- 
sies which  I  have  been  constrained  to  hold  with  other  men,- 1  have 
manifested  a  harsh  and  acrimonious  temper,  and  have  used  violent 
and  passionate  language.  There  may  be  some  foundation  for  this 
charge ;  and  if  there  be,  an  apology  for  it  is  due  to  you,  from  me  as 
your  representative.  Self-control  is  a  jewel  of  inestimable  price, 
and 

i>  •••#     Thrice  happy  they  who  master  so  their  blood, 


57 

as  never  to  lose  it.  But  so  far  as  any  friend,  or  impartial  person, 
may  have  thought  me  blamable  in  that  respect,  I  would  ask  him  to 
consider  that  the  adversaries  with  whom  I  have  had  to  contend,  face 
to  face,  have  pursued  me  with  a  virulence  and  rancor  unparalleled 
in  the  history  of  this  country.  That  twice  in  the  space  of  five  years, 
I  have  for  the  single  offence  of  persisting  to  assert  the  right  of  the 
people  to  petition,  and  the  freedom  of  speech,  and  of  the  press,  been 
dragged  before  the  House  in  which  I  was  your  representative,  as  a 
culprit,  to  be  censured,  or  expelled ;  and  when,  after  ten  days  of  the 
most  unrelenting  persecution,  I  have  barely  been  released  from  its 
fury,  I  have  been  still  denounced  as  the  cause  of  the  waste  of  time 
consumed  by  my  persecutors,  in  their  struggle  to  accomplish  my 
ruin.  On  one  of  these  occasions,  the  leader  of  the  associated  legion 
banded  against  me,  has  had  the  candor  to  avow  his  motive  for  hunt- 
ing me  like  a  partridge  upon  the  mountains,  and  I  take  the  liberty 
to  read  it  to  you  in  his  own  words.  Mr.  Thomas  F.  Marshall,  after 
the  failure  of  his  magnanimous  campaign  against  me,  published  in  a 
pamphlet  his  eloquent  speeches,  delivered  to  obtain  a  sentence  of  con- 
demnation against  me,  and  dedicating  the  pamphlet  to  his  constitu- 
ents, announces  to  them  his  purpose  for  the  future,  and  his  motive 
for  the  past,  in  the  following  words  : 

"  Though  petitions  to  dissolve  the  Union  be  poured  in  by  thou- 
sands, I  shall  not  again  interfere  on  the  floor  of.  Congress  ;  consid- 
ering as  I  do,  that  the  House  have  virtually  decided  that  there  is 
nothing  contemptuous  or  improper  in  offering  them,  and  unwilling 
again  to  afford  to  Mr.  ADAMS  an  opportunity  of  sweeping  all  the 
strings  of  discord  that  exist  in  our  country.  I  acted  as  I  thought 
for  the  best,  being  sincerely  desirous  to  check  that  man,  who,  if  he 
could  be  removed  from  the  councils  of  the  nation,  or  silenced  upon 
the  exasperating  subject  to  which  he  seems  to  have  devoted  himself, 
none  other ,  I  believe,  could  be  found  hardy  enough,  or  bad  enough,  to 
Jill  his  place." 

Besides  this  special  and  avowed  malevolence  against  me,  this  ad- 
mitted purpose  to  expel  or  silence  me,  for  the  sake  of  brow-beating 
all  other  members  of  the  free  representation,  by  establishing  over 
them  the  reign  of  terror,  a  peculiar  system  of  tactics  in  the  House 
has  been  observed  towards  me,  by  the  silencers  of  the  slave  represen- 
tation, and  their  allies  of  the  northern  democracy,  and  of  the  guard. 
You  remember  the  desperate  struggle  at  the  late  session,  of  the  slave 
representation  in  the  Committee  of  Foreign  Affairs,  to  turn  me  out 
of  the  office  of  Chairman  of  that  Committee,  to  which  the  Speaker 
had  appointed  me ;  and  that,  when  that  effort  failed,  five  members, 
constituting  the  majority  of  the  Committee,  four  slave-holders,  and 
one  Tylerite  of  the  guard,  declined  serving  any  longer  in  the  Com- 
mittee with  me,  and  that  three  other  slave-holders,  appointed  by  the 
Speaker  to  supply  their  places,  declined  in  like  manner.  Not  one 
of  these  eight  members  had  ever  had  one  word  of  pdfsonal  difference 
with  me,  upon  any  subject — their  purpose  was  exactly  that  of  Mr. 
Marshall,  to  remove  me  from  the  councils  of  the  nation,  or  to  silence 
me,  for  the  sake  of  intimidating  all  others — an  ostentatious  display 


58 

of  a  common  determination  to  serve  with  no  man  who  would  not 
submit  to  the  gag,  and  would  persist  in  presenting  abolition  peti- 
tions. 

You  can  readily  conceive,  fellow  citizens,  how  powerful  the  effect 
of  such  movements  is  to  overawe  the  members  from  the  free  States, 
and  to  frighten  them  from  their  propriety.  Every  member  naturally 
wishes,  apart  from  sectional  or  partizan  feelings,  to  stand  well  with 
the  other  members  of  the  House.  To  stand  well  with  the  Southern 
members,  is  a  ruling  passion  with  many  members  from  the  free 
States,  and  there  is  nothing  so  sure  of  obtaining  their  good  graces, 
as  a  yielding  temper  and  disposition  on  this  point  of  Anti-Slavery. 
"Where  the  South  cannot  effect  herN  object  by  brow-beating,  she 
wheedles.  The  restoration  of  the  gag-rule*  after  it  had  been  three 
times  rejected,  was  effected  in  this  manner.  Two  members  from  the 
State  whose  motto  is  "  virtue,  liberty,  and  independence,"  and  who 
had  voted  against  the  rule,  moved  and  carried  reconsiderations — to 
keep  the  balance  between  North  and  South  in  their  own  hands.  Then 
came  another  notable  device — the  appointment  of  a  Select  Commit- 
tee, composed  of  course  of  five  slave-holding  members,  and  four  from 
the  free  States,  to  report  a  revisal  of  all  the  rules.  Then  a  proposi- 
tion to  exclude  the  reception  of  all  petitions,  till  after  the  report  of 
this  Select  Committee,  [except  on  subjects  specially  noticed  in  the 
President's  message.]  This  Committee  never  reported  till  the  last 
day  but  one  before  the  close  of  the  session,  and  then  nothing  could 
be  done  but  to  lay  the  report  on  the  table.  The  good  nature  of  the 
free  representation,  circumvented  by  this  show  of  a  compromise, 
yielded  to  the  exclusion  of  petitions  for  that  session,  and  never 
recovered  the  right.  The  yielders  commended  themselves  by  their 
concession  to  the  good  feeling  of  the  South,  and  she  patted  them  on 
the  back  as  good  honest  fellows,  albeit  abolitionists,  and  laughed  in 
her  sleeve  to  find  how  easily  yankee  cunning  could  be  outwitted. 
This  compromising  with  principle,  to  appease  the  South,  is  one  of 
the  means  of  obtaining  personal  influence  with  Southern  members. 
The  refusal  to  serve  with  me  upon  the  Committee  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
was  another  sprig  of  the  same  stock.  I  do  not  believe  there  has  ev- 
er been,  since  the  existence  of  the  General  Government,  another 
instance  of  a  combined  'squad  of  members  refusing  to  serve  on  a 
standing  committee  of  the  House,  with  one  member  of  the  House, 
because  they  could  not  remove  him  from  the  councils  of  the  nation 
by  expulsion,  or  turn  him  out  from  the  chair  of  the  Committee,  with- 
out a  shadow  of  assignable  reason  for  the  act. 

This  communion  of  South,  sectional,  and  Locofoco  antipathy,  has 
given  rise  to  another  practice  peculiar  to  their  treatment  of  me.  I 
never  can  take  part  in  any  debate  upon  an  important  subject,  be  it 
only  upon  a  mere  abstraction,  but  a  pack  opens  upon  me  of  personal 
invective  in  return.  Language  has  no  word  of  reproach  and  railing, 
that  is  not  hurled  at  me,  and  the  rules  of  the  House  allow  me  no 
opportunity  to  reply,  till  every  other  member  of  the  Honse  has  had 
his  turn  to  speak  if  he  pleases.  By  another  rule,  every  debate  is 
closed  by  a  majority,  whenever  they  get  weary  of  it.  The  previous 


59 

question,  or  a  motion  to  lay, the  subject  on  the  table  are  interposed; 
and  I  am  not  allowed  to  reply  to  the  grossest  falsehoods,  and  most 
invidious  misrepresentations.  These  often  pass  from  one  member  to 
another,  in  their  combined  assaults  against  me  in  debate,  are  then 
caught  and  circulated  by  the  reporters,  and  letter  writers  from 
Washington,  to  the  newspapers,  and  re-echoed  through  all  the  party- 
presses  of  the  Union.  I  give  you  an  example.  In  a  speech  that  I 
made  on  the  morning  when  the  second  Tariff  bill  was  sent  to  the 
President,  1  observed  that  he  then  had  it  in  his  power,  by  the  single 
word  "  approved"  and  the  signature  of  his  name,  to  heal  the  breach, 
large  as  it  was,  which  had  unhappily  been  made  between  him  and 
Congress,  to  restore  peace,  happiness  and  prosperity  to  the  country. 
That  if  he  should  refuse  that  signature,  Congress  could  do  no  more 
than  return  to  their  homes,  and  leave  the  people  to  provide  the  reme- 
dy by  the  ballot-boxes — unless,  which  might  Heaven  in  mercy  for- 
bid, the  last  resort  should  be  to  the  God  of  battles.  My  colleague, 
Mr.  Cushing,  some  days  after,  in  a  speech  against  me,  said  that  my 
first  objection  against  a  Tariff  bill  without  a  land  distribution  sec- 
tion, had  been  "  an  appeal  to  the  God  of  battles."  From  him  it 
passed  like  a  watch-word  to  half  a  dozen  other  members,  all  gravely 
charging  me  with  having  "  invoked  the  God  of  battles" — and  one  of 
them,  Mr.  W.  W.  Irwin,  the  Pit.tsburg  member  of  the  Corporal's 
guard,  not  content  with  joining  in  the  chorus  in  the  House,  publish- 
ed it  afterwards  in  a  pamphlet,  which  I  have  in  my  hands,  and  from 
which  I  take  the  liberty  to  read  you  an  extract. 

"  He7  (Mr.  I.)  had  been  pained  and  shocked  to  hear  the  idea  reck- 
lessly suggested,  as  to  the  danger  of  civil  war  growing  out  of  this 
conflict  of  opinion  between  the  Legislature  and  the  Executive — :a 
conflict  anticipated  by  the  framers  of  the  Constitution,  nay,  author- 
ised and  provided  for  by  that  matchless  instrument.  CIVIL  WAR, 
indeed.  Why,  Mr.  Chairman,  the  people  of  this  country  will  permit 
no  such  thing.  They  will  not  suffer  it,  sir.  The  breath  of  the 
PEOPLE,  like  a,  whirlwind  of  wrath,  would  sweep  from  the  face  of 
God's  earth  the  wretch  who  would  dare  to  rear  the  standard  of  civil 
war  !  It  is  idle  to  harbor  such  thoughts.  It  is  wicked  to  express 
them. 

"  Mr.  I.  fully  reciprocated  the  honest  sentiment  of  reprobation 
expressed  by  the  venerable  patriot  from  Kentucky,  (Mr.  POPE,)  at 
the  idea  of  invoking  an  appeal  to  the  God  of  battles  on  such  an  issue. 
Invoke  the  God  of  battles  I  Better,  far  better,  would  it  become 
them  all  to  invoke  the  God  of  mercy  and  of  love;  HIM  who  sent  his 
only  Son  into  this  cruel,  vindictive  and  remorseless  world,  to  preach 
peace  and  good  will  amongst  men ;  thut  He  might  infuse  a  little  of 
the  spirit  of  moderation  and  wisdom  into  their  councils,  and 
strengthen  and  enable  them  faithfully  to  do  their  duty,  their  whole 
duty  to  a  suffering  country.  He  hoped  no  more  of  such  language 
would  be  heard  in  that  Hall." 

Fellow  Citizens, — Have  you  enough  of  this  overflow  of  benevo- 
lence, patriotism  and  Christian  charity  1  How  pious  !  how  loving  ! 
how  full  of  the  rnilk  of  human  kindness!  Mr.  Irwin,  while  grasp- 


60 

ing  at  the  thunderbolt  of  the  PEOPLE,  to  hurl  it  at  the  wretch,  whom 
he  would  sweep  from  the  face  of  God's  earth,  does  not  name  me  as 
the  intended  victim  of  this  popular  revenge — he  would  have  acted  a 
manlier  part,  in  brandishing  the  besom  of  his  wrathy  whirlwind,  if 
he  had  named  me — but  if,  in  reading  this  racy  paragraph  of  his 
speech,  you  will  stop  to  enquire  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  words 
"  them  all,"  you  will  immediately  perceive  that  they  stand  there  as 
the  substitute  for  my  name,  which  the  wrath  of  Mr.  W.  W.  Irwin 
lacked  energy  to  pronounce. 

I  had  no  opportunity  in  the  House  of  replying  to  this  charge  of 
Mr.  Irwin.  that  I  had  invoked  the  God  of  battles,  to  decide  the  con- 
test between  Captain  Tyler  and  the  Whigs  in  Congress ;  nor  to  any 
other  of  the  "  race  moutoniere,"  who  caught  up  and  repeated  the 
same  charge,  one  after  another,  till  it  went  from  the  reporters  to  the 
newspapers,  and  was  rung  like  a  tocsin  throughout  the  land;  but 
you  see  that  it  was  a  gross  misrepresentation  of  what  1  had  said, 
whether  originating  in  the  obtuseness  of  intellect,  which  cannot  dis.- 
cern  the  difference  between  an  invocation  and  a  deprecation,  or  in 
the  wilful  purpose  of  misrepresentation,  Mr.  Irwin  and  his  coadju- 
tors may  settle  for  themselves.  I  leave  with  Mr.  Irwin  my  hearty 
commendation  of  his  invocation  of  the  God  of  mercy  and  of  love, 
with  the  exhortation  that  in  his  next  paroxysm  of  piety  he  will  re- 
member that  his  God  is  no  lover  of  slander,  nor  likely  to  be  propi- 
tiated by  the  devotion  of  a  worshiper  who  invokes  him  in  the  act  of 
bearing  false  witness  against  his  neighbor. 

And  I  leave  with  you,  my  constituents,  this  narrative;  first,  as  a 
sample  of  the  common  mode  of  warfare  and  kind  of  weapons  used 
by  my  unrelenting  adversaries  in  Congress  against  me,  and  to  apolo- 
gize to  you,  for  to  you  I  hold  myself  strictly  accountable,  if,  in  hav- 
ing to  deal  hourly,  daily,  weekly,  monthly,  with  such  adversaries,  in 
the  use  of  such  weapons,  there  have  occasionally  escaped  unadvis- 
edly from  my  lips  words  unfitting  for  your  representative  to1  utter, 
though  not  unfitting  for  those  my  adversaries  to  hear.  And  secondly, 
to  assure  you  that  I  never  did  invoke  or  appeal  to  the  God  of  battles 
for  the  decision  of  any  contest,  foreign  or  domestic,  of  my  country — 
that  far  from  it,  all  the  most  arduous  and  unremitting  labors  of  my 
life,  for  the  last  seven  years,  have  been  to  avert  from  you  the  immi- 
nent dangers  of  a  war  with  Great  Britain,  and  with  Mexico,  to 
which  you  were,  and  yet  are — thank  God,  in  a  diminished  degree — 
exposed.  And  finally  that  the  very  words  which  have  been  thus  dis- 
torted from  their  true  meaning,  to  bring  upon  me  this  foul  reproach, 
were  used  by  me,  not  for  invocation,  but  in  deprecation  of  any  resort 
to  the  God  of  battles.  As  to  the  pretension  of  Mr.  Irwin  that  the 
mere  presentation  of  the  idea  of  civil  war  was  shocking  to  his  ner- 
vous sensibility,  I  think  those  of  you  who  were  conversant  with  what 
was  then  coming  to  pass  in  Rhode  Island,  will  be  of  opinion  that 
these  qualms  of  Mr.  Irwin  may  be  classed  with  those  of  the  preacher 
who  "never  mentioned  Hell  to  ears  polite." 

I  must  do  many  of  the  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
from  the  South  the  justice  to  say,  that  their  treatment  of  me  is  die- 


61 

tated  far  more  by  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  their  constituents 
than  by  their  own.  Were  it  not  for  this  curse  of  slavery,  there  are 
some  of  them  with  whom  I  should  be  upon  terms  of  the  most  inti- 
mate and  confidential  friendship.  There  are  many  for  whom  I  en- 
tertain high  esteem,  respect,  affectionate  attachment.  There  are 
even  those  among  them  who  have  stood  by  me  in  my  trials,  and 
scorned  to  join  in  the  league  to  sacrifice  me  as  a  terror  to  others. 
But  I  have  been  so  often  painted  to  the  South,  with  the  horns  of  ab- 
olition upon  my  head,  that  if  I  were  to  step  South  of  the  Potomac, 
the  people  would  be  looking  down  for  the  cloven  foot.  All  this  1 
endeavor  to  take  in  good  humor  as  I  may ;  and  in  that  spirit,  and  as 
a  sample  of  the  feeling  of  respectable  Southern  constituents  towards 
me,  I  will  read  you  from  a  Charleston  newspaper,  a  toast  drank  with 
unbounded  applause,  at  a  public  patriotic  dinner  at  Walterborough, 
on  the  last  4th  of  July,  in  celebration  of  the  67th  anniversary  of 
our  National  Independence. 

"  The  glorious,  pious  and  immortal  memory  of  the  great  and  good  George 
Washington,  not  forgetting  Generals  Marion  and  Sumter,  who  assisted  in  re- 
lieving us  from  King  George's  slavery,  arbitrary  power,  stamp  paper,  and 
compulsory  tea-drinking.  May  we  never  want  a  Democrat  to  trip  up  the 
heels  of  a  Federalist,  or  a  hangman  to  prepare  a  halter  for  John  Quincy  Ad- 
ams. (9  cheers.)" 

[At  this  point  Mr.  Adams's  constituents  greeted  this  toast  with  a 
hearty  shout  of  laughter.] 

Friends  and  Fellow  Citizens,  let  me  end  as  I  began,  by  tendering 
to  you  all  my  thanks — thanks  for  the  honor  you  have  conferred  upon 
me,  by  repeated  re-elections,  of  being  the  sole  Representative,  in 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  of  the  12th  Congressional  Dis- 
trict of  Massachusetts — thanks  for  the  liberal  and  candid  support 
which  you  have  given  me,  in  the  general  discharge  of  my  duty  as 
your  Representative — thanks  for  the  special  kindness  with  which 
you  sustained  and  cheered  me  with  your  approbation  and  encourage- 
ment on  two  several  occasions  of  severe  trial,  one  in  February,  1837, 
and  the  other  five  years  after,  in  February  last — occasions  on  both 
of  which  the  fury  of  the  whole  mass  of  Southern  slavery  was  con- 
centrated on  my  head,  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  breaking  down 
whatever  of  good  name  I  had  to  leave  as  an  inheritance  to  my  child- 
ren, in  order  that  my  signal  ruin  might  strike  terror  to  the  heart 
of  your  every  other  Representative,  and  leave  slavery  the  lord  of  the 
ascendant  for  all  future  time  throughout  the  North  American  Union. 
The  touching  memorials  of  your  generous  sympathy,  on  the  first  of 
those  occasions,  remain  fresh  on  my  heart  as  on  the  day  when  they 
were  displayed.  But  for  that  generous  sympathy,  to  have  persished 
without  dishonor  in  the  conflict,  would  have  been  the  fairest  destiny 
that  could  have  befallen  me — for  dishonor,  and  the  indignation  of 
my  countrymen,  was  the  professed  penalty  which  the  patriot  conspir- 
ators of  the  manacle  and  the  fetters  had  prepared  to  inflict  upon  me 
for  speaking  in  your  name,  and  in  the  Representative  Hall  of  the 
people,  the  language  of  freedom,  in  defence  of  the  inalienable  rights 
of  man. 


62 

Then,  too,  as  upon  the  present  occasion,  a  Convention  of  dele- 
gates from  the  several  towns  in  your  district,  met  and  favored  me 
with  an  interview  like  the  present — thanked  me  for  the  fidelity  with 
which  I  had  discharged  the  duties  of  my  trust — cheered  and  en- 
couraged me  to  proceed  with  the  same  persevering  and  undaunted 
spirit,  and  pledged  to  me  their  aid  and  support  to  every  exertion  to 
which  I  might  be  called  in  pursuing  the  same  career,  a  pledge  nobly 
redeemed  by  you  through  all  the  perils  of  my  latest  trial — and  glori- 
ously consummated  by  the  distinguished  reception  which  you  have 
been  pleased  to  give  me  on  this  day. 

We  are  now  to  part — and,  after  another  short  tour  of  duty  at 
Washington,  the  relation  between  us,  the  affectionate  relation  of 
Representative  and  Constituent',  will  cease,  at  least  with  a  very  large 
portion  of  you,  forever.  I  can  never  again  be  the  Representative  in 
Congress  of  the  Plymouth  Rock — but  the  memory  of  it  will  remain 
with  me  while  the  vital  blood  shall  circulate  from  my  heart ;  and 
with  it  my  still  repeated  thanks  for  all  your  kindness  to  me,  shall 
ascend  in  the  form  of  benizons  to  heaven  on  you  and  your  children, 
to  the  latest  generation. 

After  the  applause  that  followed  the  close  of  Mr.  Adams's  re- 
marks, the  following  Resolutions  were  offered  by  the  Hon.  Seth 
Sprague,  Jr.,  and  adopted  by  acclamation : 

Whereas,  The  Hon.  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  has  for  ten  years  been 
the  Representative  of  this  District  in  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  and  that  relation  being  soon  to  cease  by  the  formation  of  new 
Districts,  agreeably  to  the  late  apportionment  law  of  Congress, — we 
deem  this  a  fit  occasion  for  the  expression  of  our  feelings  and  opin- 
ions, in  relation  to  the  manner  in  which  he  has  performed  the  duties 
of  his  station. 

Resolved,  That  we  have  always  cherished  the  strongest  attach- 
ment to  the  union  of  these  States,  and  would  always  indignantly 
frown  on  any  attempt  to  alienate  any  one  portion  of  the  people  from 
another;  that  we  disclaim  all  wish  or  desire  to  infringe  on  the  con- 
stitutional rights  of  other  States:  And  we  cannot  but  view  the  vio- 
lation of  rights  secured  to  us  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  by  sister  States,  and  the  denial  of  the  right  of  petition  by 
Congress,  as  tending  to  consequences  destructive  to  the  best  interests 
of  the  Union. 

Resolved,  That  a  petition  is  the  most  humble  and  respectful  mode 
iu  which  any  people  can  inake  their  wishes  and  grievances  known  to 
the  rulers  of  a  nation,  and'we  cannot  degrade  ourselves  by  asking  as 
a  favor,  that  which  the  greatest  despot  does  not  refuse  the  meanest 
of  his  subjects:  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  in  refusing 
to  receive  the  petitions  of  our  citizens,  has  been  guilty  of  an  unwar- 
rantable and  arbitrary  assumption  of  power,  a  grievous  wrong,  in 
violation  of  constitutional  right :  that  the  Hon.  John  Q,.  Adams,  in 
resisting  these  encroachments,  and  nobly  and  fearlessly  contending 
against  them,  is  entitled' to  our  warmest  thanks  and  lasting  gratitude ; 


63 


that  the  people  of  this  Union  owe  him,  and  posterity  will  award  him, 
this  homage  and  gratitude  for  contending  for  a  principle,  the  denial 
of  which  strikes  at  all  true  liberty. 

Resolved,  That  the  watchful  care  for  the  well  being  of  this  nation, 
manifested  by  our  Representative,  in  his  warning  voice  against  the 
design  of  a  war  with  Mexico,  and  his  deep  foresight,  and  profound 
wisdom,  in  exposing  the  designs  and  preventing  the  annexation  of 
Texas  to  the  United  States,-  has  saved  the  country  from  internal 
commotion,  and  from  consequences  which  every  friend  of  humanity 
must  have  deplored. 

Resolved,  That  the  attempt  of  a  few  members  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  to  censure  and  degrade  our  aged  and  venerable 
Representative,  for  the  performance  of  that  which  he  considered  his 
duty,  and  which  was  his  constitutional  right,  was  a  violation  of  indi- 
vidual privilege.  We  admire  his  masterly  defence — we  congratu- 
late him  on  his  victorious  and  complete  triumph  over  his  assailants. 

Resolved,  That  the  assiduous  and  untiring  devotion  of  Mr.  Ad- 
ams to  the  duties  of  his  station,  his  fidelity  to  the  interests  of  his 
constituents,  his  utter  fearlessness  in  exposing  error  and  defending 
truth,  excite  emotions  not  easily  expressed;  and  though  we  may  not 
all  remain  his  constituents,  it  is  ardently  hoped  that  we,  and  all  9ur 
fellow  citizens,  may  for  many  years  reap  the  fruit  of  his  long  experi- 
ence, his  profound  knowledge,  and  his  matchless  talents  in  the  Coun- 
cils of  the  Nation. 

The  Convention  dissolved  after  the  singing  of  the  following  ode, 
written  for  the  occasion,  by  the  Rev.  John  Pierpont. 


ODE. 

Sung  by  the  Constituents  of  JOHN    QUINCY  ADAMS,  on  his  return  from 
Congress,  September  17,  1842. 


Not  from  the  bloody  field, 
Borne  on  his  battered  shield, 

By  foes  o'ercome, 
But  from  a  sterner  fight, 
In  the  defence  of  Right, 
Clothed  in  a  conquerer's  might, 

We  hail  him  home. 

Where  Slavery's  minions  cower 
Before  the  servile  power, 

He  bore  their  ban ; 
And,  like  an  aged  oak, 
That  braved  the  lightning's  stroke, 
When  thunders  round  it  broke, 

Stood  up,  A  MAN. 

Nay — when  they  stormed  aloud, 
And  round  him,  like  a  cloud, 
Came,  thick  and  black, 
He,  single-handed  strove, 


And,  like  Olympian  Jove, 
With  his  own  thunder,  drove 
The  phalanx  back. 

No  leafy  wreath  we  twine, 
Of  Oak,  or  Isthmian  pine, 
To  grace  his  brow ; 
Like  his  own  locks  of  gray, 
Such  leaves  would  fall  away, 
As  will  the  grateful  lay 
••;;••  We  weave  him  now. 

But  time  shall  touch  the  page 
That  tells  how  Quincy's  sage 

Has  dared  to  live, 
Save  as  he  touches  wine, 
Or  Shakspere's  glowing  line, 
Or  Raphael's  forms  divine, 

New  life  to  give. 


- 


